A Few Cheap Ideas for Party Decorations and Fancy Dress Costumes

You can buy masks, capes, brooms and other accessories cheaply from pound shops or most supermarkets and high street shops.

These are all great especially if you want the scream mask with blood pump attached to make the blood run down the mask face. Boys like to dress as Ninja fighters or Dracula and girls as pussycats or witches.

But my very favourite time of Halloween is not just the actual day but the making of the costumes and decorations before hand.

You can cut out ghost shapes from white paper or even use the back of old envelopes and spiders cut from black paper. Get two wire coat hangers and cello tape them together in a cross formation, pushing one through the other. Use a needle and cotton to attach a line of cotton to the paper cut-outs then tie the other lengths to the four ends of the coat hangers, so it makes a mobile then attach this so it all hangs from your ceiling. If you can find pens that glow in the dark even better, draw patterns on the shapes and watch them glow later on that night.

Three easy and cheap or free to make costumes and a chance to go mad with the make-up, are the bride of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and the pussycat.

For the Bride of Dracula you will need an old white bed sheet and make-up. Wrap the sheet round your body how ever you like but leave a little to go over the back of your head, you can either stitch or pin it together with safety pins. Use white face paints to make the whole of the face pale, black lipstick or a dark lipstick for the lips and red lipstick or fake blood for the blood drips at the corner of the lips. Use dark colours around the eyes.

For Frankenstein’s monster you will need two wine corks, theses are for the pretend bolts through his neck. I stitched them onto a piece of sting so they would stay either side of the neck. Slick hair back, used red lipstick to make scars and blacken the eyes with dark make up. If you have an old pair of black PJ bottoms you can cut them to make them look torn and an old T-shirt also.

For the pussycat you will need black T-shirt or top, black woolly tights for your legs. To make the tail cut the leg off an old pair of tights, stuff that leg with the rest of the tights and you have a tail, stitch that onto the back of the woolly tights. You can either make a full mask with ears or just make some ears. If you have an old headband this can be converted into ears very easily. Cut out two large cat ear shapes, slightly bend them in the palm of your hand and glue cotton wool onto the inside to make them 3D, cover them in the black toes from a pair of tights. I like to use tights, they are cheap and stretchy so can be used to cover lots of things. When you have done, stitch up the tight fabric then stitch the ears onto the headband. To make the cat mask you will need black card. Cut out a cat face shape including ears. Cut out the eyes, make sure the eye holes fit where your eyes are, can be tricky just take your time. I would say put the cut out mask up to your face and get someone to mark where your eyes are so you have an idea of where you should be cutting. When it’s cut out use a piece of elastic or a strip of old tights, to secure the mask to your head. Then decorate with glitter.

Just some cheap and effective Halloween costumes! Happy Halloween, even the dog gets in on the act!