Just a Little Blog: Spooktacular crafts

Hey guys!

Happy Halloween! I hope you've all got your costumes ready and carved your pumpkins. For the first year in a while I'm not actually going to be at home this evening, I'm going to see Spectre instead (Please don't tell me any spoilers!) and I'm super looking forward to it.

This post is just a few crafts for Halloween that I saw on Pinterest and knew I had to try out. Mine didn't work as well as I wanted (basically they failed), but I sort of know what went wrong, so I can pass on my tips for them.

First up is a spooky ghost lamp. It is essentially just a white plastic cup over the top of an LED tea light. I've had this cup for a few months and it's just been sat on my bedroom floor waiting to be used for something cool. I basically just drew a ghost face onto the cup and it looks quite cool when it's dark! If you fixed some smaller cups onto a string of fairy lights, you could make a cool string of little ghosts.

The next one is the one that totally failed! Jelly worms. To try and make them, I bundled some straws together in a glass, and tried to fill them with jelly. This was the first of my many issues with the worms. The jelly didn't stay in the straws, it just bled out into whatever glass I put it into, even when I put clingfilm over the end. Looking back, I probably should have put a layer of jelly in the glass first and then pushed the straws into it, but didn't. Let me tell you, when liquid jelly is around, kitchen counters get very sticky and jellied! The next problem I had was HOW TO GET THE JELLY OUT! It was next to impossible without breaking them or smushing the worms into mush... I think I definitely chose the wrong sized straws. They were very thin, which didn't really help the issue. If you're going to try this, you may want to think of a way to get it out, because I have no solutions. It seems almost impossible to get them out.

(sorry this photo is sideways!)

Finally, ghostly garlands. This one can be used like bunting for a party or to decorate for trick-or-treaters. I used small gemstones I used to collect as a kid but they were way too heavy, so I'd suggest maybe using a balled up piece of tissue or light bead. This should mean the bottom of the tissue hangs better to look like a ghost, rather than the upside-down one I ended up with.
For the ghost I tore a square of kitchen towel into 4 pieces, because it was 2-ply (I know, fancy right!) I also separated the layers to make it thinner. It was pretty easy to tie the bit of ribbon around it once I'd bunched up the tissue below the stone for the head.