Crafts for Halloween Scares

Head on a Platter!!!

Simple homemade crafts can turn a home into the perfect haunted house for Halloween parties.  For family fun and quality time, try creating ghosts, bats, spiders, jack-o-lanterns and that spooky haunted cemetery in the yard.  

The head on the platter for a table decoration and costume is simple to make.  In the photo above we took a large thick piece of cardboard for the table top, cut a circle in the center for the head to fit through and then covered it with an inexpensive vinyl tablecloth.  Cut a hole in the center of the table cloth to match the one in the cardboard for the head.  Next take another piece of cardboard and cut it to the shape of a meat platter.  Once more you are going to cut a hole in the center for the head.  Cover the meat platter cardboard shape with aluminum foil.  You can then either glue or tape the meat platter into place on your table top.  To add to the character of this decoration/costume, place disposable salt and pepper shakers on the table, possibly a fork and knife, an apple in the head's mouth, and any other accessories you wish upon the table top.  Be sure to secure them to the cardboard and vinyl table cloth, especially if this is for a costume where the person will be walking around with the tabletop and it's contents.  The vinyl table cloth should hang down all around the cardboard table top in order to cover the body of the person's head who is upon the platter.  For a home decoration, a doll's head can be used instead of cutting the holes and placing the table top upon someone's shoulders.

Graveyard in the Yard 

 While most of us would prefer not to have a graveyard actually in our yard, for Halloween many design and craft a cemetery for decorating their lawns.  This is simple to do with materials many of us have on hand.  Tombstones can be fashioned from wood, sticks, rocks, stone, styro-foam, etc.  Once the stones have been cut and fashioned, paint RIP or Here Lies - , or whatever you wish upon them.  Stores sell inexpensive skeletons, rubber hands, skulls, etc.  It is simple to set the stones made into the ground, then place a hand reaching up out of the ground, or a skull upon the top of a gravesite.  To make it even more interesting, try covering the fake limbs, skeletons, and skulls with a glistening yellow and green glitter.  Glow in the dark sticks and items can be added to enhance the cemetery at night.  Don't forget to include bats and spiders.  A great way to make some bats to hover over the tombstones is to take helium black balloons, paint small white eyes on them, make felt black wings and glue to the balloons.  This works for spiders also, just make the 8 spider legs with pipe cleaners and attach instead of the wings.  If using white balloons, they can work for ghosts as well.  Put the helium balloons hovering at different heights over the tombstones.