When it comes to purchasing decorations, whether for indoors or out, try and think long term. We store all of our decorations in one giant bin. Every year we use the same skeletons, ghosts and scarecrows. Not only is this cutting down on the number of disposable Halloween items we are also creating traditions for our family. I remember as a little girl we always brought out a haunted house candle every year...never burned it...but it was our little tradition.
Halloween is a great holiday for the DIYer. If you are not particularly "crafty" then this is the holiday for you. The worse a decoration looks - the better - it just look creepier! (find out how to make this ghost chain next week)
Every year my daughters create many, many pictures for Halloween. I keep those items in a large ziploc bag, inside my Halloween bin, and pull them out and hang them up. I love looking at how their skills have progressed over the years. The ghost at the bottom of the picture was made by my eldest daughter in 2006..she was barely 3 years old!
Yes, it is fun filling up endless bags with candies on Halloween night. But, seriously there is no prize for the kid with the most candy. Try and stop collecting candy at a reasonable point. I know if your kids are out on their own this is a tough one to control. Setting reasonable limits is okay. All that candy means more garbage and more calories for you. Enjoy the walk on Halloween night, getting out and chatting with friends and neighbours is part of the magic.
In our neighbourhood we can put our pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns in the compost. Check and see if your town picks up pumpkins...or compost in your own home compost pile. Just cut it up first, to help it decompose faster. Don't forget to bake your pumpkin seeds! When you are cleaning out your pumpkin, keep the seeds. Separate them from the stringy flesh. Pop them on a baking sheet and place them in a 350F oven for 10-15 minutes...until golden brown. Remove them from the oven and sprinkle with salt or other seasonings. Enjoy.
I would love to suggest skipping the store bought candy and handing out homemade cookies or treats, but I know that's not realistic. The days of handing out cookies is long gone. However, if we try and think about how much we are consuming then maybe we can spend a little less time throwing out candy wrappers and more time laughing with our kids.
Does your family have any tips on ways to make Halloween a little greener?
This post is part of the 2011 Greening your Halloween Blog Tour, brought to us by Green Planet Parties, Green Halloween, Green Gift Guide, Surf Sweets and A Little Bit of Momsense.
Terri says
Great suggestions!
KitchenCounterChronicles says
Thanks Terri! Thanks for stopping by.
Jessica says
This is a great article! Growing up, we were very frugal - so buying decorations and costumes was pretty much out of the question. (Besides, back then, store-bought costumes were basically plastic masks and bib-like configurations. 🙂 I loved hallowe'en because it meant we would have fun being creative and resourceful. I don't think we ever spent a single cent on anything other than candy.
We usually used old clothes to make our costumes and whatever we could find around the house. One year I was an angel, so I threw on an old maternity dress that my mom kept for me to play dress-up and we made a halo out of an aluminum pie plate. My brother was a pirate, so we made a wooden (or cardboard?) sword and shredded an old pair of his pants (which were shorts the next summer) and put a bandana on his head and a clip-on earing. (Again from the dress-up collection.) Mom always did our makeup using her own instead of buying it. (Remember this was the 70's & 80's so you can imagine the assortment of colours.)
Decorations were also homemade and got more sophisticated as we got older. Old sheets became ghosts. Scarecrows were made from Dad's workclothes, straw and burlap or sackcloth. (Mom is a rug-hooker.) One year we decided to take the scarecrow a step further and made a hanging man in our front tree. (Wouldn't recommend that if you have a lot of really little kids coming to the house. 🙂
It was so much fun that I would be planning for it all year - coming up with new ideas for costumes and decorations. It became kind of a competition among friends as to who could make the most original costumes. One year my friend and I went as a pair of dice and made our costumes out of cardboard boxes, while three others went as the Hostess Munchies dress in coloured plastic bags. (Sounds strange but it worked. 🙂