Halloween is one of L’s favourite events, it comes only after Christmas, so we always have to carve a pumpkin and decorate the house. We also love a bit of crafting together and Hobbycraft had all the bits to help. 

Each year we have been adding to our spooky Halloween collection and this year has been no different. The only thing I wanted to make sure was that L could get involved and help make some new decorations this year so all stocked up from Hobbycraft we got to getting messy.

Our start point was their Giant Box of Halloween craft, a bargain box of goodies to help you create loads of fun projects. There are ideas on the box, but this is basically the base to let your imagination go crazy. Scissors, foam, glitter, pom poms, glue, beads, paint, googly eyes, pipe cleaners, tissue and so, so much more all for only £5. This is so flipping amazing.

We then got some great blanks, small polystyrene and ceramic hangers and larger wooden hanging decorations. My aim was to decorate the Easter Tree I made with Hobbycraft earlier in the year and turn it into a Halloween Tree, as well as adding a few larger items for around the house.

At this point I’m going to be honest and admit we also got some super glittery pumpkin decorations all ready to go, literally unwrap and hang. I am obsessed with them, they are so cute and I might go back and get some more. In fact, at £1 for a set of three I might get quite a lot more. Obsessed.

For our little tree decorations I painted the two skulls, one ceramic and one polystyrene and used the glitter glue from our Giant Craft box to add some highlights, all whilst L got busy decorating his little polystyrene pumpkin. His pumpkin started off being orange, soon became multi coloured and eventually got covered in so much glue and purple glitter you couldn’t see any of the paint. But that is what is fun about these things, they can go crazy and make what they want, having a laugh in the process.

We also made a few little decorations using the Giant Craft Box. There is a small Halloween Wreath, created by twisting two pipe cleaners together and forming a loop and gluing some of the little embellishments on. We made a Halloween Candy Cane by threading coloured beads onto a pipe cleaner. We made a spider for the base of our tree using different bits from our craft box, we also made a dreadful witch, but L thinks it’s good!

We had so much with the larger wooden decorations. We kept it simple with all them but they look great.

Our wooden pumpkin just got a like of paint and a liberal dose of glitter. What’s great about these is that so long as you don’t go too made with the paint, the black lines on the decoration still show through, providing a bit of definition and making the finished product look great.

I love what happened with our wooden skull decoration. L and I coated it in glue. Something L is always happy to help with! We then tipped all of the Halloween sequins from our craft box onto it. I moved a few bits around so it was all covered fairly evenly and we left it to dry. The finished effect is better than I could have hoped for. It looks a bit gruesome and messy but catches the light in every direction and just sparkles.

For our wooden spiders web I grabbed some of my own silver paint for the skull in the centre, just to make it stand out a bit, then went for our trusty glitter glue from the craft box for the spider. I left the wood bare for two reasons, L was getting fractious and I genuinely don’t think it actually needed any more.

The decoration I’m most pleased with is our Day of the Dead style floral skull decoration. It is a larger item than the others and with the intricate details already cut out it looks fabulous on its own. L was so excited to paint it but I was fully aware if let loose with the brushes it would quickly become a brown mess which would have been sad.

So instead we headed outside with several bottles of bright paint from my stash. Purple, green, red, orange, silver, blue. Anything I could find that was vibrant and bright and in keeping with that Day of the Dead vibe.

Then I let him go crazy, squirting and dripping the paint onto the skull from height. I stopped him when it had a decent covering and before things got too crazy, then took a straw to blow the paint out of the holes and spread some of the larger clumps out a bit. It then got hung on the washing line to dry. I tell you, our lawn has never looked prettier!

When it was dry I gave it a once over to make sure any paint that had dried over the holes or was a bit lumpy at the edges was removed, I just used my fingers for mist of this, but where it had dried into some of the smaller and more intricate details I used a pin.

I really like the finished look and of course I love it all the more because L made it.

None of these crafts took us too long at all and they were all really simple, great fun for keeping the kid occupied now that the weather has changed.

Disclosure – Hobbycraft kindly sent us our Halloween goodies in exchange for this article. All thoughts, opinions and images are my own.