MY HALLOWEEN PICKS FROM THE WEB

Well I have been very busy making costumes for Halloween, hence the radio silence on the blog.  We are going as a double act this year Trick or Treating around our local neighbourhood. My son picked the theme, Maleficent and her dragon!  I bought a Maleficent headdress on a trip to Disneyland, a cape and long dress from EBay. Very easy! Then came the dragon!  I just couldn't find a black dragon costume anywhere, so I scoured the net for a tutorial and came up trumps! filthwizardry.com has a fantastic tutorial to turn 2 plastic milk bottles into a dragon! It took a bit of patience on my part and a bit of help from the family but it all came together and the boy is very pleased! I'll post pictures after the event, but if you are looking for a cheap costume idea head on over to the tutorial. In all the dragon has cost me £5.00 for a metre of fabric for the wings. I had everything else to hand.

Now that the costumes are sorted, decorating the house comes to mind. I concentrate a lot on the outside with a few spooky touches inside, mainly to annoy my husband! So here are my favourite picks for decorating with pumpkins, jars and props!

1. I thought the idea of making your own Halloween lights was so cute that we decided to have a go! Black cats and friendly ghosts on My Cakies shows you a very simple tutorial to make these. My son and I had a go and it took all of 20 minutes to make a set of black cats. Here's our version turning party lantern lights into spooky cats!

2. I really like to see the creative ways people get with pumpkins and this topiary from Tatertots and Jello is no exception! The pumpkins are lighted ones but I can't see why you couldn't do this with actual pumpkins. Hop over there for the tutorial to make these Black and white pumpkin topiary.

3. Another different take on pumpkins are these fun cats using more than one to make up the bodies. Martha Stewart always has such good ideas. I'm really hoping to have a go at these if I can find the right shape pumpkins. Instructions to make these can be found here.

4. The glow stick pumpkins are something we are very excited to try out this year! We have a stair case and steps running up to our front door where these would look just spectacular. We are going to have a go with some plastic tubs we have accumulated over the past few months rather than glass jars. This is also just in case any little trick or treaters knock one off as they walk up the steps in the dark so they won't break! Head on over to Create Craft Love to view the tutorial.

5, If you want to do more then place a few pumpkins at your front door, howabout sharing with the neighbours that the witch is in and she's making a brew?! Take an ordinary plastic cauldron and turn it into something super creepy with this tutorial from Let it Shine. I love all the extra touches she put into this, it looks so authentic!

6. Or if you are just looking for carving inspiration, have a look at these 22 ideas over on DIY Network. Loads of inspiration!

Happy Halloween!