Halloween on a budget

Every year it seems to come around. Halloween. If you are a parent, your children may want a party. If you are a teacher, your students expect one. The problem is, things are getting expensive. For schools, budgets are getting tight. For parents, even more so. How can you scary up the house or school without spending a fortune? Here are a few ideas I used this past Halloween. They may take some planning, so I'm posting this early to give time for next year.

First of all, there are ghosts. It can't be Halloween without ghosts. Ghosts are fairly easy. Take any white plastic shopping bag. Draw a scary face with a felt marker, and instant inexpensive ghost. Of course, you could add some details. Ghosts don't have handles as a rule. Cut the bag handles off, and they make good arms. Trim the edge of the bad and you can make passable fingers. Hang it where it won't be seen until too late, and you've got a great grabby ghost. Trim a bit more off the bag if it is big enough and make legs too, if you like. You can have as many ghosts as you want if you just save bags from grocery shopping. Just try to hang them so the logo is not visible. Of course, you could cover the logo with a pure white graft from another bag too.

One problem with ghosts, though, is that they are supposed to float. Not everyone can afford a helium tank, but you can get around that. Take some time just before the beasts and ghouls arrive. Get two or three of the ghosts, and run a hot air hair dryer in them. This works best with a grabby ghost. Like a hot air balloon, the hot air inside the ghost will cause it to float. Since many parties take place in basements, you can make this trick easier by turning the heat down a bit. Not enough to really be uncomfortable, though. This trick takes some time to do, so don't plan on too many floaters.

No, we have ghosts, we also need cats and spiders. If you are lucky like I was, you will have a store that puts things in black plastic bags. Then you can chop the bags up to your hearts content. If not, here is another possibility. Go to a hardware or home supply store and ask for black poly sheeting. Canadian Tire carries it. I'm sure Hope Depot and all the others do too. You should also be able to find some at a paint supply store. At Canadian Tire it costs about $1.00 (Canadian) for a one foot length of three foot wide sheet. That should give enough for several spiders and cats.

If you have ties lying about, then you can have snakes. Make eyes and tongues on paper and attach them with scotch tape. If you really want to get fancy, you can make paper snakeskins so they look more life like.

As for treats at a party, you can make some great Halloween cards by searching for Halloween clip art on the net.

Altogether I was able to decorate a classroom for Halloween with only the cost of printer paper. You can easily do the same.