Death is Just Around the Corner | DIY HALLOWEEN DECOR & TREATS

One-legged zombie, sparkling vampire, mother-in-law from hell.

What are you going to be for Halloween?

I myself am a big fan of the slutty doctor. Such a classic.

Actually no. No, it’s not. Not classy.

Not cool.

Stop it.

To be honest, Halloween kind of snuck up on me this year. I was just going about my daily routine, on my way to work, turned round a corner into a dark alleyway then BAM! There it was, chainsaw in hand, blood dripping from the corner of its mouth, smiling. Wasn’t expecting it, really made me jump. “Don’t you forget about me,” it said, “I’m coming to get you!”

And sure enough, there it is coming to get me. Halloween is… tomorrow. To say I am unprepared is a bit of an understatement...

I never really got into the spirit of Halloween, you know. That is, this year. Technically I’m a massive fan and I will be haunting the streets of Berlin for sure, but I never managed to get all spooked. I don’t think it’s just me, being busy and all that. Germany is just not the place to be for Halloween. Germans just don’t know how to celebrate the dead. And undead. And deformed.

We were never taught. They should do seminars for this kind of thing. A Beginner’s Guide to Apple Bobbing. Trick-or-Treating: How to Maximize Your Profit. It’s Alive! Seeing Your Business Grow.

Now that would be useful! (Seriously though, does this kind of thing already exist somewhere??)

So to get a bit of a Halloween vibe going on at my place I decided to make some simple decorations that say “Bats are our friends too”, but don’t scream “I’M GOING TO EAT YOU IN YOUR SLEEP!”

(Random interlude. (This is just how my brain works.) I believe I would be pretty good at negotiating with Death, actually… Upon our first encounter I’d probably say something along the lines of “Not today, big guy, settle down!”, and then we’d hit the town, get drunk at a random bar and I’d show him the list of people in my burn book…)

(Just kidding, I don’t have a burn book.)

(Or do I?)

Now something I did have lying around was this cute little pumpkin that my mom got me. It’s no longer in its best shape so I thought I’d give it a little make-over, really freshen up its complexion you know.

Although I love jack-o-lanterns I’m always disappointed that the pumpkin’s life span is seemingly decreased by 99% when cut open. Very odd. So for this project I decided to get out my paint brush and leave the pumpkin in one piece. Clearly, I’m feeling very merciful today.

On a sheet of white paper I played around a bit until I had figured out the size of the triangles I wanted to paint onto the pumpkin, then proceeded to cut out a bunch of them. The base of my triangle is about 1½ inches, the sides measure about 1 inch.

Once cut, I taped the triangles onto the pumpkin to figure out the desired placing, leaving a little space between each triangle so that they weren’t directly touching. I then traced the outlines of the triangles with a pencil and removed the papers. The triangles end up being slightly larger than originally measured so remember this when calculating. If you like, you can be generous when tracing so that the triangles now touch one another.

I then re-taped the triangles onto the pumpkin to create a second row. Subsequently, I got out some gold paint and filled in the geometric shapes. Since the paint didn’t produce the desired coverage, I added a second layer once dried.

Once dried, display!

I love the gold, it shimmers beautifully and reminds me of the sun glistening over auburn-colored tree tops in the fall.

My sister however made it pretty clear that she didn't get the orange-gold scheme whatsoever so I decided to go traditionally black with the next project: a simple paper bat-garland.

I started by drawing a simple bat shape onto a piece of plain white paper so that it would nicely fit across the sheet horizontally. (It’s easiest to fold the sheet in half length-wise and sketch out only one half of the bat. When folded open, both halves turn out perfectly symmetrical.)

I placed the template onto black cardboard paper (folding the paper in half length-wise again) and traced as many bats onto each sheet as possible one below the other.

After cutting out the bats I strung them together with black sewing thread and taped the ends to the wall to let these little guys fly.

I also ended up making some spider web treats by piping some melted chocolate onto pretzel sticks I had previously arranged as desired. Let dry and serve to your ghoulish friends.

May your Halloween night be a disastrous one!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED:

Geometric Pumpkin:

- pumpkin

- white sheet of paper

- pencil

- ruler (optional)

- scissors

- acrylic paint

Bat Garland:

- sheet of paper

- pencil

- scissors

- black cardboard paper

- black sewing thread

- sewing needle

- tape

Spider Web Treats:

- pretzel sticks

- chocolate

- piping bag

(it is recommendable to eat them the same day)