Coming thursday, its halloween out here. I have never really "celebrated" halloween or even been to any of the parties. But this year, its going to be different as there are at least 35 children in this campus and they are all going to come trick or treating to our homes. So, I thought I would join the crowd and keep up the halloween "spirit" by decorating my home.
I need to inform you that most of my ideas have not been completely implemented yet. But I figured, if I posted this right on the day of halloween (thats when I will finish all of the construction) then it will not be of great to anybody at all. So, here are my ideas...implementation and completion will follow in the week...
Window faces
You need :
cardboard
lights
colored tissue paper
cardboard cutting blade
Cut cardboard to fit your window.
Trace out a design of choice on paper and then paste them on cardboard.
Cut out the design.
Stick colored tissue paper over the cut pattern using masking tape or glue.
Attach christmas decoration lights to the cardboard using masking tape such that the lights are seen through the cut pattern.
Do not stick the lights to the tissue paper. Tissue paper cannot stand the weight of the lights and will come off torn.
The picture in the right shows how NOT to stick the lights on. As you can see, the weight of the lights is pulling the tissue paper off.
If you have huge bulbs and light stands that can be made to point light at the tissue paper, then you can use them instead of these small decoration lights.
From outside, this is how your lit up window will look like:
Glowing pumpkins:
I found these 'glow in the dark' paper serving set in a store nearby. These quarter plates can be hung around the house as-is or you could cut the pumpkins out and then use them on your walls, doors, windows etc.
Spiders:
There are many ways of making spiders. The simplest one is to find a black bag - garbage bag, plastic bags, cloth bags, pillow cases, cushion covers -just about anything and filling them with paper to make it look like a spider.
First, we stuff the bag with a big paper ball to make the body. Then we tie a string and stuff the rest of the bag with a smaller paper ball to make the face.
One could use elbowed straws to make the legs. If you dont find black straws anywhere, use black streamers or crape paper to cover a normal straw into spider legs.
Use thermocol balls to make eyes.
Hari made this very real like spider using thermocol and jute string. He cut a thermocol piece to form the body and covered it with jute string. He made a smaller one for the head piece. These two parts were attached using toothpicks and glue.
As you can see, the spider is not complete yet. I plan to complete it in the coming week, just before halloween. Taking cue from him, I made a smaller one using thermocol and black wool thread. 
This is to show the toothpick being used to attach the body to the head.
Group of bats:
I looked around for black chart paper but I found them to be a little costly. So when I found these 20 black paper plates for 1 dollar, I picked them up. Hari drew me the stencil for a group of bats and I used it to cut the shapes out. I will stick these on our walls. Neat !
Spiderlings:
The idea was to create a home and family for our huge spider. So, this is my big ultimate halloween experiment. I blew up a balloon and then using a glue+water mixture, wrapped it up in layers of toilet paper.
After this dries up, I plan to release the air inside the ballon slowly and steadily. Then I am thinking, this will look like a spooky broken egg. On this egg, I will stick these black paper spiders that I have cut out from the same plates as the bats. I will make it look as if a number of spiders are jumping out of this egg. Well, its a grand idea and in a few days I will let you know if the idea worked or not.
Apart from all these, I also want to make a spider web and a white ghost (from white plastic bag or cloth) but I am very exhausted right now and have a packed week till wednesday so, I will continue this post with more halloween details on/after wednesday.
And if you were wondering, I am not going to be wearing any costume this year. After so many years I have come to realize that I dont need anything artificial to make me look scary....
Anyways, these are the small ways I have showed halloween festivity in my office in LA 3 years back...
That was a simple lighted hair band...like a devils horns...
A little more wilder....with red wig and matching glasses. I went to office like this before halloween and scared quite a number of people as the wig fit my hair perfectly and most people ended up thinking I had actually colored them crazy. And then, I dressed up for halloween too.
This is my favourite....a very cool looking beanie which said "SINISTER"... since pics were taken on a webcam, its come out ulta..
I released the air from the balloon and inserted a bulb wrapped in red tissue paper.
