Halloween Fun within a Budget: Go Green and Save

Here's a great article on how to prepare for Halloween simply and without having to buy, well let's face it, yet more Halloween stuff that you later regret buying. Go green this Halloween with these great tips, and stay within budget while still having celebrating Halloween! See more decorating ideas in this related article, "Frightful Flowers Make Halloween ‘Boo-tiful’."

Any suggestions or additional ideas for going green this Halloween?

Halloween ‘Howl To’s’

(ARA) - As Halloween approaches, the seasonal "to-do" list, typically marked with finding the perfect costume and trick-or-treat route, is a bit more complicated with the growing need to protect the environment and manage household budgets. In preparing for your neighborhood ghosts and goblins, try these easy tips and tricks to "go green," and spend less on your families' spook-tacular celebration.

Howl to be Green
Incorporating small changes into your holiday preparation will go a long way to create an eco-friendly Halloween. Whether you're hosting a party or adding colorful flare to the home or office, take inventory of your decorations and go back to nature by using locally-grown pumpkins, apples or fresh gourds to create tabletop and front porch accents. Organic, pesticide-free produce is widely available at farmers markets, grocery and specialty stores and leaves little waste once the celebration ends.

Also look for ways to "re-use" your Halloween accessories. Cloth or canvas shopping bags and pillowcases are great alternatives to paper, plastic bags and more traditional plastic jack-o-lanterns used by many trick-or-treaters to collect candy. Gather fall-colored scraps of fabric, ribbon, buttons or food coloring and spend the afternoon with the kids decorating a recyclable trick-or-treat bag. Use the custom creation to hand out candy at your door and your house will be the hit of the neighborhood.

Howl to Save
Spend less this Halloween by using old or outgrown clothes, sports equipment or dress-up items to make one-of-a-kind costumes. Unpack your graduation gown and buy a gavel at a thrift or prop store to transform your trick-or-treater into a judge. Dust off a wedding gown or bridesmaid's dress, polish an old pair of pumps and grab a wig from a costume store and you've got a princess. Host a costume trading party and make sure everyone comes with old clothing or accessories to trade. Let the kids use their imaginations and see how many new and different costumes come to life.

You can also save by using recyclable household materials to decorate. Bed sheets hung from the ceiling or tree branches make convincing ghosts, as do balloons covered with a white sheet, tied with a ribbon around the neck and black felt tapped on for eyes. The sheets can be taken down, laundered and returned to the linen closet once Halloween is over.

Howl to Have Fun at Home
Consider baking at home this year to get everyone in the Halloween mood. Find unique recipes for Halloween treats that can be used as decorations or centerpieces before you indulge.

Gather everyone around and make creepy "edible eyeballs" with mini white powdered donuts, Life Savers Gummies, red icing and chocolate chips. Cover the hole in the center of the donut with a thin layer of icing and top with a gummy. Next, dip the bottom of a chocolate chip in icing before layering it on the gummy. Make the eyeball scary by drawing lines from the center of the donut to the outer edge with red icing. Finish the treat by poking each donut with a lollipop stick and arranging them in a bowl of candy corn to make a freaky yet tasty centerpiece.

Howl to Be Safe
Set the seasonal mood by decorating trees and sidewalks with lights and lanterns while making it easier for trick-or-treaters to find their way from door to door. Neat, well-lit landscapes make everyone feel more comfortable and confident.
Another simple way to help ghosts and goblins find their way door to door is to use makeup to finish a costume as an alternative to masks. Face paint makes it much easier for trick-or-treaters to see … especially at night.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Frightful Flowers Make Halloween ‘Boo-tiful’

(ARA) – What could be scarier than some fake spider webs and a leering jack ‘o’ lantern this Halloween? For millions of Americans, the answer seems to be a bare front porch and undecorated home totally lacking in spirit.

In 2007, nearly 50 percent of Americans decorated their homes or yards for Halloween, according to the National Retail Federation’s Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions survey. The survey estimated total Halloween spending, including decorations, at around $5 billion last year.

Many serious Halloween acolytes add one or two major items of decoration to their collections every year. Larger pieces, especially those that feature movement, light or sound, can cost hundreds of dollars. But it’s possible to create a fresh, fun or even frightful atmosphere with a cost-effective, timeless decorating tool – cut flowers.

“It’s easy to take home decorating for Halloween a step beyond store-bought decorations by using flower arrangements,” says Jill Slater, flower designer for flowerpossibilities.com. “While simple, Halloween-themed floral creations can be enjoyed during the fall holiday season, fresh-cut flowers can be enjoyed in the home throughout the year.”

Flowers are especially versatile as Halloween decorations because they can be used to create fun or frightening effects. Whatever the atmosphere you plan to evoke, remember that color is key.

For scary effect, choose cut flowers in powerful colors like blood red, or ghostly white. Crimson roses, lightly laced with somber white genistra and presented in a creepily cracked urn can make a frightfully good -- and eerily elegant -- decoration for your grown-up Halloween display..

For fun arrangements, choose seasonal colors like golds, yellows, oranges and burnt umber. Accent seasonally hued floral arrangements with harvest-themed extras like dried corn husks, wheat stalks or gourds.

Flowerpossibilities.com offers several “recipes” for fun Halloween floral decorations, including:

Spooky Sheriff

Materials:

* One 6-inch round pumpkin (real or hollow artificial)

* Three stems protea

* Two stems orange gerbera daisies

* Two stems yellow gerbera daisies

* One stem yellow lily

* Three stems boxwood

* Three or four stems sword fern

* One red bandana

* One small cowboy hat

* One brick floral foam

* Floral clippers, scissors and knife

* Floral preservative/food

Directions:

1. Soak floral foam for at least 30 minutes in water treated with flower food/preservative.

2. Cut and scoop out pumpkin. With permanent marker, draw eyes and nose of Spooky Sheriff.

3. Cut the wet foam to fit and insert the floral foam into the pumpkin. Set the cowboy hat on top of the floral foam.



4. Cut flowers and foliage to approximately 4- to 6-inches in length.  Begin inserting stems under the cowboy hat and into the exposed floral foam.  Place the colorful yellow lily and yellow gerbera daisies front and center and position the dried wheat and orange gerbera daisies to one side. The protea and sword fern are used to fill spaces of the bright flowers.

5. Tie the bandana around the base of the pumpkin.

       

Floral Creepy Crawlers

Materials:

* One decorative wire basket

* Two bricks floral foam

* One stem each: orange standard carnation and pin-cushion protea

* Colorful shredded bunny grass

* Two 2-inch clay pots

* Six Chenille Bump stems of pipe cleaner (available at craft stores)

* Four stick-on plastic eyes (available at craft stores)

* Glue gun and glue

* Halloween candy

* Floral clippers, scissors and knife

* Floral preservative/food

Directions:

1. Soak one brick of floral foam for at least 30 minutes in water treated with floral preservative/food.

2. Cut the floral foam that has been treated with floral preservative/food to fit the inside the clay pots

3. Cut the pin-cushion protea to about 2-inches in length and insert it into the center of soaked floral foam.

4. To make the spider legs, cut the pipe cleaners in half. Then shape them by wrapping around index finger. Insert the pipe cleaner legs into the floral foam surrounding the flower at spaced intervals. 6 legs are used for each spider.

5. Adhere eyes onto the flower using the glue gun.

6. Repeat steps two through five to create the orange standard carnation spider in the other clay pot.

7. Cut dry brick of floral foam to fit inside of the basket, and place securely inside to use to prop up accessories and your floral creations.

8. Cover dry floral foam with colorful bunny grass and set one Floral Creepy Crawler inside the basket and the other just outside.

9. Sprinkle Halloween candy throughout the bunny grass.

Courtesy of ARAcontent