Halloween Activities, Costumes, and Decorations

Are your Halloween decorations going to be tasteful or trashy this year? For some people, Halloween means an opportunity to go garish. But while it's true that many people enjoy the jokey scariness and prank-filled atmosphere of this ancient festival, some just aren't that into the whole horror theme that seems to dominate the season.

Fortunately, there's plenty of color in the autumn palette to characterize your home Halloween decor if you don't feel like resorting to the macabre. The fall brings a wide variety of gorgeous colors and fruits to inspire homemade decorations and provide materials for your craft projects and household designs.

After all, the holiday has its roots in an ancient festival to celebrate the transition of the seasons. So there are plenty of good looking harvest time themes to celebrate this time of year, with decoration ideas and recipes that evoke time-honored customs and rituals.

So if you love Halloween but don't fancy jumping on the blood-curdling bandwagon of scary Halloween decorations, why not deck your house with seasonal trimmings and flourishes instead? Here are some suggestions for decorations and ornaments to keep you in the holiday spirit:

• Pumpkin decorating ideas: carve them if you want -- but they'll probably last longer if you leave them intact and decorate them instead. Try painting funny faces and giving your pumpkin characters extra personality with a hat and scarf, or perhaps even some trendy shades for a 'cool dude' look.
• Seasonal collections of fruits and gourds: these look great when artfully arranged as a mantelpiece or table display.
• House decor: anticipate some of the elegant Christmas trimmings by putting up a garland or front door wreath that uses autumn colors.
• Make a Corn Dolly: this old tradition stems from a time when farmers wished to honor the spirits of the harvest and encourage them to return the following year to provide good crops. These figures, made from bundles of wheat, can be as simple or elaborate as you wish and can form part of a centerpiece or an outdoor decoration.

Even if you prefer to give the spooky side of Halloween a miss, you can still take the opportunity to celebrate the autumnal traditions that are traditionally associated with the festival.

Are you ready to make a start on your Halloween crafts, costumes and decorations?

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Whether to decorate your house or your classroom for Halloween, the best choice of decorations are the ones that you make yourself. Home Halloween decorations are fun to make and are really cost efficient in the long run. The camaraderie shared with your friends and family is priceless while you make home Halloween decorations. It is a creative experience that every child will remember doing. In some households it has become a family tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation. With just a few materials you can turn your house or classroom into a gruesome, scary, and fun place to have a party or to invite trick or treaters.

The basics of home Halloween decorations are simplicity. Orange and black construction paper is a must. You also need Elmer’s glue, scissors, tape, and crayons or magic markers. The best way to start is to start at the top of the room. You can make a boarder to go around all four walls with a paper chain. Simply cut your orange and black construction paper into strips. Curl the strips into a ring and glue or staple them. They must be interlocked and should alternate in color from black to orange. If you really want to get gruesome you can add some blood red construction paper to the chain. To be more creative you can draw symbols of Halloween on each strip to give it more character and depth.

While still working on the top of the room, think of things that dangle from the ceiling. You can make cut outs of the skull and crossbones, witches, black cats, or ghosts from your construction paper to make some great scary figures. The paper is light enough so if there is even the slightest breeze your figures will move with it in a eerie fashion. To make this home Halloween decoration more creative, you may want to create mobiles with the figures by hanging your cut outs on descending sticks hung by fishing line or twine. If you have extra cutouts paste them on whole sheets of construction paper to give it a colorful back ground.

On your snack table, you can play a joke on your guests by decorating with Halloween food. You could glue all the candy corn together in a huge ball so that when a friend tries to take one, the whole glob of candy corn comes up in his hand. Think of eerie foods that you can serve like gummy worms and marshmallow eyeballs. Your can take the paper plates and draw monsters or scary images on them. Put on a scary movie in the background with the sound off. These can give the room an extra feature of the Halloween spirit. You might want to die your curtains orange or another Halloween color and put candles in the windows. From the outside the candle looks nice but from the inside the candle can cast eerie shadows on the curtain creating a cool special effect. The skies the limit with home Halloween decorations and your imagination and creativity will flourish once you get going.

Are you trying to come up with some fun Halloween activities? The Get In Costume website has plenty of other ideas for Halloween fun as well as creative costume ideas for trick-or-treaters of all ages.

Plus, get a free copy of my special report "The Family Guide To Halloween Safety" at http://www.getincostume.com/freereport

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Halloween is a holiday full of drama and entertainment for kids and grown ups alike. Colorful candies in all shapes and flavors are delightful treats for kids who go from door to door with their 'trick or treat' cries. The costumes add all the flair to the celebration; from spooky to fun dresses, it is all about fun with creative Halloween decoration ideas to lift everyone's spirits.If you are throwing a Halloween party this year, it's time to get creative and make the party something to remember. Along with the usual treats and cocktails, decorating the venue with items that blend with the overall theme is sure to make the bash a huge success. Here are some Halloween decoration ideas to help you have a fun bash:

Halloween Lights: One need not fret over creating the right light setting to set the mood of the party. There are simple ways to lighten up the party atmosphere; how about changing the regular light bulbs to colored ones, or placing colored floodlights over other decoration pieces to highlight the party's theme? You can use candles in a variety of ways as part of party decorations to transform the conventional party table into a spooky dining affair. Candles and candle holders are available in many designs, and you can use those which blend with your party's theme. Pumpkins are synonymous symbols of Halloween, and also serve as great candle holders. Illuminate the party venue with hollowed-out pumpkins which look great wherever they are placed; keep them on the main dining table, light up the porch with glowing pumpkin faces, or place some in the outdoor venue.You can hang strings of decorative lights around the table or the room to add to the overall festive occasion. Black lights are extremely popular in lighting posters, costumes, paintings etc.

Decorative Table Ideas: There are many kinds of table ware to pick from; while most of them are made from paper, one can find good quality plastic ware too. Match the plates, cups, table cloth, napkins and serving utensils so that they look part of the same theme. Say you are hosting a Vampire themed party, you can opt for red and black being the theme colors and have a red table cloth or a coffin shaped cake.

Creative Center Pieces: Using a carved pumpkin is the commonest idea for a center piece. For a themed party, the pumpkin can be carved to resemble the theme; placing a candle within also adds the overall look. You may choose to decorate your table with flowers of the autumn season for a more serene look, or place glow sticks in a bowlful of ice for special effects, or create a creepy look with black ribbons and dried flowers and branches.

Design Your Punch Bowls for Special Effect: Let your guests take their drinks from a skeleton punch bowl, complete with a skeleton ladle and cups, or a creepy looking spider web bowl. The idea is to impart a spooky touch to almost everything!

Thus, with all this Halloween party stuff to help you decorate your home for the next Halloween party, let your creativity lead the way into a fun-filled bash.

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Halloween is the beginning of the first of 3 autumn through winter holidays. Halloween was originally celebrated as a day to honor the dead, held at the end of the Celtic year. The original name, Samhain, is now used to describe the autumnal equinox and harvest time in general. Many have forgotten the origins of Halloween and enjoy it entirely for the costumes and candy.

Over the years, Halloween decorating has become second only to Christmas. There are many cheap and fun ways to dress up the house that reflect the origins of the holiday and won't empty the pocketbook. The everlasting cheap pumpkin provides endless possibilities.

Pumpkins can be carved, painted or left plain and set about the house and yard. Kids love to carve their own pumpkins. The pumpkins could be complimented with smaller cheap gourds and dried Indian corn. A harvest display of dried corn stalks is a perfect backdrop for a Halloween display and with a few adjustments can work well all the way into Thanksgiving. These are great cheap lawn displays. If carefully stored, the corn, gourds and corn stalks can be saved and used again the next year.

One of the best ways to cheaply decorate a family home for Halloween is to enlist the creativity of children. A great, kid-friendly Halloween decorating idea is the old construction paper stand-by. Cut out silhouettes of witches, ghosts and bats from construction paper for a mobile or window decoration. Paper lunch sacks can be given faces, stuffed with straw and used as the head of a scarecrow. Cut scarecrow bodies out of cheap grocery store bags or other heavy paper. Clothing can be cut out of pre-colored paper and glued to the body. Scarecrows don't have to be scary to get into the spirit of Halloween.

Not many events can compare with the fun of a Halloween party, except perhaps the decorating. Cheap Black crepe streamers add an air of spookiness to any room. There are many styles of cheap fake cobwebs available that can be hung from chandeliers and across windows or even in trees outside. Spiders can be set on the cobwebs for added effect. Homemade headstones can be cheaply made and hung on walls and kids and parents can have fun writing creative epitaphs. Witches' hats are easy to make from construction paper.

Truly, the only limit to Halloween decorating is your imagination.

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If you're looking for Halloween decorations, then you'll need to plan wisely if you're on a budget. Many people add pieces to the Halloween decor each year, buying one big-ticket item, like zombie animatronics or a full-sized coffin and several haunted house accessories, like body parts, pictures and banners. If you will be having a Halloween party this year, then vamped up decorations are essential to creating the right ambiance! Oh, and don't forget the creepy sound effects!

At "The Horror Dome" you will find that it is arguably one of the best sites for the Halloween decor that will freak people out. These professional, Hollywood-caliber Halloween decorations may cost you but they'll last you throughout the years and will really impress friends and family. Some pieces are so cool, that the gothic in you may even want to keep them up all year round.

The site offers loads of items to include in haunted houses, such as an entire house of horror facade structure for $11,000, 7-8 foot tall Predator and Alien props for $4,100-$4,700, fortune teller machines and screaming monsters that are bound to shock and horrify your guests. For the more budget-conscious party host, you can buy body parts for as low as $10, possessed changing old-fashioned portraits for $35, a 65-inch hanging ghoul for $70, fog machines for $80, the "It's Alive" baby puppet for $80, a fortune telling machine for $150 and a zombie popping out of the ground for $270.

Are you looking to make some of the Halloween themed decorations yourself this year? So many times we see items and think "Hey I could make that," so why not try your hand at craftsmanship this year? At "Creepyfx" you will find DVDs and workshops on creating your own Halloween decorations. At "Goregalore", you can purchase a "corpsification kit" for $45, which will enable you to make your own nasty-looking corpse. At "Annies Costumes" you can build your own spider web for $30 with the webcaster gun. At "Brandsonsale" you will find a make-your-own-tombstone kit for $20.

At "Monstermakers" you can find a number of kits and resources for making latex monsters, with kit prices ranging from $30 - $375 and monster teeth kits for $40. This could be great Halloween fun to do with older children. "Monsterguts" offers a number of kits for making homemade animatronics, from $2.49 for the LED eyes kit to $149 for the thrashing box monster kit. If you've got an engineer in the family or you're feeling really tech-savvy, then you can try your hand at making your own skeleton animatronics via the directions found on "Wildrice".

Last, but certainly not least, consider how the Halloween music and Halloween horror sound effects can really help set the tone for your Halloween party. If you're looking for a huge selection of CDs, then check out "Goregalore", which offers some scene-specific soundtracks, such as chainsaws, industrial machinery sound effects, cemetery sounds, thunder and rain, night creatures, demonic whispers, zombie attacks, pipe organ music, creepy carnival, dark orchestral or Danny Elfman inspired soundtracks.

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Everyone uses pumpkins and orange lights during Halloween, but that doesn't mean that you can't find unique Halloween decorations to use both inside and outside of your home. Sick of seeing every house on the street put up the "crashed witches" or huge garbage bag pumpkins? Here are some ideas to keep your neighbors talking about your neat decoration ideas!

• Masks: Masks don't have to just be for your face-they can be some great Halloween decorations as well! Try lining and entryway with scary masks or even hanging one on your front door. This can also be an inexpensive way to decorate, since you've probably collected a number of masks over the years. Put a mask on your scarecrow, on your garden features like statues, and even your kids' dolls. If you'll be using the masks outdoors, make sure that they are weatherproof.
• Glass vases: You can fill glass vases with almost anything! Orange, red, brown, and gold are the traditional colors of fall, and you can use strictly black and orange right around Halloween if you wish. Try filling vases with colored leaves, marbles, or orange and black candies. If you want to really get gruesome, you can also use unusual things like plastic bugs!
• Spider webs: Most people use the fake spider webs outside, but they'll last longer inside as well. The added bonus? It's ok if they get a little dusty! Spider webs are supposed to be spooky, so put away your cleaning products for a few weeks! Make sure that you spray your spider webs with repellent to deter any live inhabitants from making a home! If you want a less scary, try spraying the webs with spray glitter for a pretty touch.
• Murals: Let your kids go crazy by painting a huge Halloween mural or banner. Buy a large piece of white cloth or even a white bed sheet and allow them to use paint or markets to create something your can display along your wall or even in your front yard. Allow your kids to be creative or, if your children are still young, outline the words "Happy Halloween" or "Trick or Treat" in big, black letters so that you've created a big coloring book page for them to color.
• Small Changes: You can really make a big impact with just a few small changes. Put up orange and black curtains. Use a Halloween-designed throw rug. Cover the pots of your indoor plants with plastic Halloween containers. These little changes can really make a big difference in your overall holiday spirit!

The bottom line is that Halloween decorations can really help you to enjoy the holiday. You don't have to go overboard or even spend a lot of money to decorate your house. Choose a few key items both inside and outside, and you should be well on your way to a great Halloween. Every year, add a few more items to really build up to a wonderfully decorated house. Colin Joss is the owner of http://www.halloweenhalloweenonline.com - a site dedicated to hints and tips for family fun at Halloween.

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Are you afraid of ghost and dark places? In the month of November, aside from the celebration of "All Saints' Day" and "All Souls' day", people are gathered to celebrate one of the most awaited holidays of the year called as Halloween.

Halloween is the time where people turn their houses and yard into a spooky place to scare passersby. Also, it's a time to prepare or bake tasty but scary looking treats. Every year the market offers different ideas to spice up your Halloween. Overall, it is a time where people can enjoy and have fun.

For those people who have backyards or front lawns, you can turn them into scary cemeteries or a creepy graveyards in preparation for the Halloween.

As early as October several stores are already selling Halloween decorations like tomb stones made out of Styrofoams. If you are on a budget, you don't have to buy Halloween decorations when you can actually make your own tombstones out of plywood. After which, you can simply paint them with gray paint for that tombstone look. You can also create bats out of card board paper.

Other people would go for buying decors to avoid the hassle of making one. They would buy skeleton and bury part of it on the ground or have some of its parts shown on top of the ground for a more creepy effect. For example: You can also bury the hands facing upward to emphasize a rising dead.

some shops also offer lights to add up to your Halloween decoration. They come in pumpkin, witches, and skull designs. They also have rubber bats and spider designs perfect to place on skeletons and tombstones or on trees for a creepy yard. To add effects on your spiders decors, you can buy synthetic cob webs. IF you don't have skeleton decors to display, you can make your own scare crow and make it look as scary as possible.

Some Halloween characters that stand out during Halloween are the Grim reaper, Dracula and Witches. These characters are available on stores which you can put on your doorsteps to welcome you trick or treat friends. They even have sensors that can detect movements and reacts to scare them.

If you are on a tight budget you can still enjoy Halloween by making your own decorations or you can go for the old trend of putting up carved pumpkin and self-made scare crows; after all, Halloween doesn't have to cost you much to celebrate it.

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One of the most exciting holidays of the year happens to be Halloween. Around this time of year you can enjoy dressing up, eating candy, and having some fun with some decorating. Whether you are a kid or you feel like a kid, this is an exciting time of year. If you are having a big party at your home, you'll definitely want to decorate everything up for Halloween. Not sure where to begin? Here are some great Halloween decoration ideas that you can use to make your home look incredible for a spooktacular party.

To make your home look great for the Halloween party, consider purchasing a bit roll of some Caution tape, which is often used around crime scenes. Rope off your lawn with the tape, so everyone sees it when they arrive at the party. Add a sign that says "Only Enter at Your Own Risk." This can make everything seem kind of spooky and it will add to the Halloween party with a spooky ambiance.

Instead of using your regular porch lights on your front porch, use a black light bulb. This way everything you put out on the porch that is white, such as ghosts or skulls will end up glowing and looking particularly eerie. Everyone will enjoy entering your home by blacklight for Halloween.

Of course, you won't want to forget the pumpkins when you are looking for good Halloween decoration ideas. One idea to make them last longer is to paint them instead of carving them for Halloween. Consider using some acrylic paint to paint the faces on the pumpkins and they will last a long time. This also keeps you from making the big mess that comes with carving. Use various pumpkins of different shapes and sizes for a great display.

If you want to make the windows look spooky, consider cutting out some silhouettes of different icons for Halloween. Go with black witches, bats, cats, and more. Then put them up in the windows. The look will be very spooky and eerie, which will make the party even more exciting. The great thing is that the windows will look great from the inside and the outside too.

You won't want to forget a scarecrow when you are looking for Halloween decoration ideas. It's pretty easy to make a scarecrow on your own. Go with a pair of pants and a shirt. Stuff them with some leaves or some straw. Then add on a scary mask and it will definitely look scary if you put it on the porch or somewhere in your house where it takes people by surprise.

All of these ideas are fairly easy to make and reasonably priced too. You don't have to spend a lot of money to have some great decorations. So if you want to have a great party this Halloween, use these Halloween decoration ideas for a spooktacular even that everyone will enjoy.

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Here are some ideas for Halloween decorations that can be used indoors or outdoors. Decorations like these were popular in the 1940's and many are still common-place today.

A traditional and easily prepared outdoor decoration is made of autumn leaves (real or fake) with corn stalks from your local farmer and lit Jack o'lanterns around the base. The corn stalks can be attached to a porch support beam, a light pole or a shepherds hook that held the summer's flowers.

Another traditional Halloween decoration is the Jack o' lanterns. Put them in groups, line them up on a fence, porch railing, along a walkway or along a driveway. Candles, dishes of alcohol and salt were popular on Hallowe'en. Add blue Christmas lights to give a ghostly illumination.

Free hand silhouettes/cuttings of black and/or orange construction paper hung on the windows and walls make for a neat effect. Some items to draw include witches, pumpkins, cats, bats, elves, fairies, spiders, owls, cauldrons, broomsticks or peaked hats. Search the internet for figures you can print and trace. You can also create unique lamp shades for your Halloween party. Use stiff orange and black paper cut out like Jack-o'-lanterns, witches, cats and other popular Halloween symbols.

Popular decorations were created from various fruits and vegetables. Apples, turnips and carrots can be cut into grotesque faces and displayed as is or used to hold candlesticks. You can also create Halloween goblins from the fruit and vegetables. Use Jack o'lanterns for the heads. The body is a smaller pumpkin and carrots are used for arms and legs which are fastened to the body with wire.

What would Halloween be without ghosts? Use a Jack o'lantern for the head which is attached to an upright post. Drape a white sheet or tablecloth from the post. You can then pin/stake the ends of the sheet out a few feet or just allow the sheet to blow in the wind.

Whatever your taste in Halloween decorating is, you may find that some of these vintage halloween decorating ideas may be ideal for your own haunted home this Halloween.

Beth is a fan of everything Vintage Halloween. She maintains the Vintage Halloween Ideas web site where she shares nifty Halloween ideas from the 1890's to the 1960's - including Dennison's Bogie Books. Halloween Party Ideas, Invitation wording, decoration ideas and more.

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Halloween is a time of year for decorating. When it comes to created decorations at home, it is possible to craft Halloween decorations from simple things you have lying around the house. These recycled Halloween decorations are fun for the entire family and bring the fright back to Halloween.

Make a Snowglobe

A Halloween Snowglobe can be created from an old glass jar, plastic bugs and small stones. To create this Halloween decoration, simply clean out the glass jar and dry. Fill the jar with Karo syrup and place the stones and plastic bugs in the jar. The top of the jar can be sealed in place with some silicone caulking to prevent the liquid from escaping. Once the caulk has dried and the rim of the jar is secure, the Halloween Snowglobe will be slimy and scary for all those who wish to shake it up.

Make a Spider

The egg carton is another easy source for recycled Halloween decorations. The egg carton spider can be crafted from one egg section. Simply cut out the egg cup and paint black. Attached chenille stems to the egg cup with glue for the legs and paint on white eyes. After punching a hole in the middle of the egg cup, fishing line can be used to string up the recycled Halloween decoration all over the home. If these decorations are the be hung outside, it is important to spray the entire spider with a waterproof clear spray paint to prevent damage from the weather. These spiders look wonderful when paired with artificial webs created from cotton batting.

Make a Bat

Another egg carton Halloween decoration is the egg carton bat. Instead of using just one egg cup, this bat requires three cups in a row. The two outer cups need to be cut down to resemble the wings of the bat. Paint and decorate the cups to look like a bat and string up using the same fishing line you used with the egg carton spider. For a twist, you can also paint on some red fangs to make the egg carton bats look even scarier.

Crafting recycled Halloween decorations is a budget friendly way to celebrate this scary holiday. Many decorations can be created from things you save from the trash. Other simple recycled Halloween decorations include light bulb witches and juice carton door stops. Kids can create all of these crafts with the help of an adult and some safety scissors.

D. Halet
At Present that you have got a few Halloween homemade scary decorations, time has come for you to go designing your next Halloween party. Furthermore whenever you need a little help on doing this, remember that I'm here to aid; you'll be welcome to My Happy Halloween and discover our list of Halloween decoration ideas. Feel free to write your input, your views to the most enjoyable Halloween we've all ever dreamed of!

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