Halloween Crafts Part 2

With Halloween fast approaching it seems everyone is putting their thoughts to Halloween crafts, costumes and party decorations. Whether you're after a low key Halloween in front of a scary movie and feeding the mass of trick or treaters, or going all out with a gore themed party, check out some of my favourite craft and decorating ideas for this season.

Trick or Treat Tote

This Trick or Treat Tote has plenty of room to carry as much candy as you can possibly collect, it's also cute enough for kids to carry around, but looks good enough for Mum or Dad to carry as the night wears on without feeling too silly. If you think you're in for a big night it might be wise to reinforce the handles with a few extra stitches to carry that load.

3D Pumpkin Carving Tutorial

If the standard Jack-O-Lanterns aren't for you then check out this 3D pumpkin carving tutorial, each step is clearly outlined, and you can let your imagination run wild on who's face you want to immortalise (for a week or so anyway!) in pumpkin.

Felted Jack-O Lantern

If you're not going all out this year with cobwebs and spiders and a house covered in decorations, Betz White has a wonderful idea to add just a touch of holiday charm to your decoration. Using reclaimed wool sweaters she made the very sweet felted Jack-O-Lantern to display in an embroidery hoop on the wall.

Evil Mad Scientist Caprese Salad

The Evil Mad Scientists have managed to make food not only particularly creepy, but also fairly sophisticated, this Caprese Salad features fresh mozzerella, olives and basil, classy, yet still just a little unnerving.

Halloween Creepy Specimen Jars

These specimen jars are sure to give anyone who glances at them the creeps. They're just some dollar store finds floating in a jar of water, add a detailed label (or not so detailed in the case of "unknown specimen"!) with just the right amount of distressing and fake blood and you have a very effective and inexpensive decoration.

Halloween Embroidery Tutorial

Vickie Howell has a great Halloween embroidery tutorial on Craftzine, turn your doodles into decorations for onesies, treat bags and banners, and don't worry if you can't doodle, the pdf patterns are available to download, you just need to use transfer paper to put the design outline onto the fabric.

Halloween Bunting Tutorial

Fussy cutting this Alexander Henry print creates a striking, a very easy to make, Halloween bunting. With the huge range of Halloween fabrics now available this would be easy to customise to any theme, whether you're going for cute or creepy this year.

Halloween Votives

Skip To My Lou has a great craft that kids can get involved in, make Jack-O-Lanterns without all the mess of smushed up pumpkin and seeds everywhere. Some crepe paper and modge-podge is all that's needed to make these very sweet little Halloween votives, I love the touch of using white paper and creating a ghost, you could even go further with some green paper and create Frankenstein's monster.

Halloween Candy Corn Recipe

Halloween is synonymous with pumpkin lattes, caramel apples and candy corn, now you can make the latter at home. This fairly simple candy corn recipe yields about a pound of the autumnal treat, and countless gasps of awe from the neighbours as you put a handful of homemade candy corn into their kids' trick or treat bags.

Rustic Knitted Pumpkins Tutorial

Chunky variegated yarn adds to the look of these rustic knitted pumpkins. No need to change patterns to make them in different sizes either, simply switch to a finer (or even thicker) yarn and the suggested needles on the wrapper and you can create your own pumpkin army, ready to pull out each year the moment the leaves start to fall.

What are your plans for Halloween? Are you going big or small? Cute or creepy? Or is it just an excuse to sit down for 10 hour Zombie flick marathon? Whatever your plans are this October, enjoy, and if you're doing the movie marathon, invite me!

You can check out Halloween Crafts Part 1 if you missed it yesterday!

Fern Treacy is blogging from Australia. You can check out her fantastic blog here!