True, it can cost a lot to give candy to all the neighbourhood kids on Halloween night. But if money's tight, and you simply haven't got the budget to buy off the pranksters (some of whom really will splatter your home with rotten eggs -- or worse -- if you don't "shell out" ), there are a couple of things you can do to save money. First, here's what NOT to do...
As for decorating your place for Halloween on the cheap -- "Decorate your home and yard with everyday items and almost-trash, like leftover candle stubs and toilet-paper ghosts," the glossy magazines tell you. Right. Not. Who was the genius to suggest that lighted candles and paper products were a good mix? Now throw in gangs of rambling trick-or-treating kids wearing capes and robes and all manner of flammable costumes? Uh-uh.
One of the best things about Halloween is that it's a night to let fantasy run free... So instead of money, why not spend a bit of creativity? Sometimes those quick homemade Halloween costumes can be the best costumes, if the ideas are good ones.
Why send the kids out to collect Halloween treats in a tacky plastic pumpkin, when there are more attractive treat containers to be found -- like these cheerful reusable buckets…
Who knew that watermelon carving was such a hot art form?
Around here we tend to think in terms of pumpkin carving – especially at this time of year, with harvest winding up and Halloween just looming on the horizon.
Well, heck, why not watermelon carving too?
Of course, we’re entranced by the whole carved-radish culture of Mexico’s Night of the Radishes, naturally… and other weird and wonderful fruit and vegetable art makes an appearance from time to time, so the watermelon as a medium for artistic expression is not a big leap…
I've got to confess to having a weakness for Spookytown miniatures — well, anything miniature, if it comes to that — ever since I read Piers Anthony's now-classic fantasy On…
No, that's not a real pumpkin. But that is where this idea came from, a witch-in-a-pumpkin who caught my eye at Victorian Trading Co. (It's a lantern, it's a figurine,…