Why? Because you can scare the little kiddies? Well, that's only a part of it ;)
The biggest reason I think I love Halloween is because it is the absolute best holiday for the DIY-er!!! This holiday has so many ways you can make things and use your creative genius to side-step the atrocious prices you see for things at the stores!! Of course, one of the best ways to save money would be to hit up the after-Halloween sales after the holiday's passed, but what about when it's a month or two til the big day, and those ghouls are rocking their $60-$200 price tags, the garlands are at their $10-$15 tags, the props are sold separately at $5-$40 for the smallest things, etc!! YIKES!! I just couldn't justify spending that much on any one item unless it was the most awesome thing ever which truly, it usually isn't!
To give you an idea, below is a picture of the walkway between my mobile home (perpendicular to the street) and the garage, only connected on one side by the covered patio to the kitchen and the gate entrance on the street side, where this picture viewpoint is taken...
Now, it may be a little hard to see, and I apologize for the poor quality but this was taken in 2006 by a friend, and we both regret not having gotten much better pics!! The ceiling is made of black trash bags, cut in half and taped together to cover, with fishing line hanging from it (what the heck did I just walk under?! EEK!). Then you've got the webbing tossed here and there, covering the path... the glow sticks in the yard and in the webbing, there's a fog machine and a strobe light (the light towards the back, middle left). What you can't really see is a ghoul hanging middle right and the creepy music we've got playing. The very middle of the picture back there, is the covered patio with the light on. This way, the kids could see my friend standing there, telling them "It's ok, come and get your candy!" What you (and the kids) couldn't see was right next to him on the left, I was sitting in a chair, hunched over, right behind the red strobe light. When the kids would be so focused on getting their candy and congratulating themselves, "We made it all the way through!! Yayyy!!", they'd start to turn around, ready to head home when right in their faces.....
HISSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, the screams we heard that night!! And of course, some laughs after they realized they just totally screamed as loud as they did!! **siigh** That was a very fun year! Again, not (just) because we scared a good bit of kids, but because we made such an impact with so little a budget and decorations!! I don't want this to sound like such a sales pitch, but seriously, with just a little bit of money and a lot of imagination (and time of course), even YOU can create your own awesome decorations!! And think about it this way, if you have kids, what better way to spend time together and to start teaching them to use their imaginations than to sit down and make your own decorations together!! EVERYBODY WINS!!!
What I'm going to do now is show you some of the things I did this year for Halloween that were very little cost, but had a really big impact! First of all, ghouls! Those guys are way expensive IMHO, am I right? Well, instead of spending $60 a piece, why not go to your local thrift shop, Goodwill, wherever and buy a cheap mask! The most I've spent on any of my masks was about $6 I believe. Then you head over to the linens and spend about $5 on a whole twin size sheet (or two or three for color variety) or even the fabric store where some have solid cotton fabric for as cheap as $2-$3/yd and cheaper if you have a coupon!! Lastly, party section for black balloons! What do all these make?
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| On the side gate in the backyard for party. |
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| In the backyard for a party. |
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| Front yard for Halloween night! |
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| Coming around the wall from living room to kitchen. |
Look at how freaking awesome those are, right?! And each cost me only about $10 max total supplies!! I don't know about you guys, but I would definitely call that a win!!
I'll go ahead and end this post now as it's getting long, and next post, I'll show you guys a few more low budget ideas you can try!!
