Wickedly sustainable Halloween home decor ideas
Pumpkin decorations have become synonymous with Halloween, either carved as lanterns on your doorstep, painted or arranged as a tablescape.
Sustainability manager Olivia Parry said: “If you can, buy your Halloween pumpkins from a local farm and make pumpkin picking a fun day out for all the family. A farmers' market is another good option when it comes to reducing your carbon footprint when you’re buying a pumpkin for Halloween.”
Helen Joseph, from our in-house interior design team, added: “Pumpkin carving is a great activity for all the family. A collection of smaller and larger pumpkins also makes for a seasonal tablescape or doorstep décor, mix up the varieties and select non-traditional pumpkins with texture and alternative colours such as blue-grey or white for added visual interest.”
Here’s why we love pumpkins at Halloween:
- “Leftover Halloween pumpkins don’t have to go to waste. The pumpkin flesh or pulp can be cooked and make the base of a sweet or savoury dishes such as pumpkin risotto with caramelised pecans or pumpkin soup,” Olivia suggested.
- Pumpkin seeds are full of fibre, antioxidants, magnesium, zinc, and unsaturated fats. Add them to oats, salads, pasta, bakes and a host of other dishes.
- Pumkin seeds also make great bird food. Place them in a bird feeder and watch your feathered friends flock to your garden.
- After Halloween, providing you haven’t used paint or glitter or other non-edible decorations, your pumpkin lantern can feed animals such as squirrels, foxes and badgers. Place your pumpkin on higher ground away from hedgehogs.
- Smashing pumpkins ready to compost can be a great stress buster! Pumpkins can also be placed in your food waste bin, if your local authority provides one.
For more pumpkin decoration ideas, read our spooktacular guide to preparing your pumpkin for Halloween.
4 Scarily simple home Halloween decorations and costume ideas
“Try to reduce, reuse and recycle this Halloween,” Olivia said. “Instead of buying new Halloween decorations and costumes every year think about what you already have in your home and how it can be repurposed for Halloween.”
One of the easiest Halloween decorations to make at home is to simply hang an old Halloween costume or dress in an upstairs window, backlit so that passersby can see it.
Instead of buying a plastic bucket for collecting trick or treat goodies, make one. “A plastic milk bottle could be repurposed and decorated to look like a ghost or you could paint a scary face on an old cereal box and thread ribbon through the top for handles,” Olivia suggested.
Consider swapping costumes with friends and family or even mix and match old and new.
You could get creative with some old clothes and material rather than buying a new outfit. “An easy to make Halloween costume is a skeleton marked out on a black t-shirt and leggings with chalk or masking tape,” Olivia added. “Or you could make a spider costume. All you need is an old cotton duvet cover or sheet, black wool and pipe cleaners.”
- Cut out a circle from your white sheet with a scalloped outer edge and a hole for your head.
- Glue lengths of black wool from the centre to the outer edge, before adding several rings of wool.
- Finish with a giant spider made out of two black wool pom poms stitched together and add pipe cleaner legs.
Find more top tips for a sustainable home.
3 Spellbinding Halloween craft ideas
If you’re looking for home activities for Halloween, cast your eyes on these wicked craft ideas to add to your Halloween home decor.
- Spin a spider’s web for your front door to display treats. Collect three similar-length thin sticks and lay them across each other as if they were spokes in a wheel. Tie in the middle and then weave around a piece of wool from the centre out, looping around each stick until you have lots of circles to create a web. Hang from your front door and place sweet bags between the wool pieces for trick or treaters to help themselves.
- Give your new home a spooky make under by creating fake cobwebs for inside your home. Simply pull and stretch at the fibres of quilting batting or cotton wool, leaving a few holes and wispy ends for an authentic look. Place your cobwebs inside the windows or on picture frames. “Be mindful to only hang your fake cobwebs inside your home as outside they can be a hazard to wildlife including insects, bats and birds,” Nicola Johansen, Group biodiversity manager, advised.
- Make a ghoulish garland by reusing wastepaper including magazines, newspapers or letters. Or you could use coloured card or felt and ‘vamp’ it up with some fang-tastic eco-friendly alternatives to glitter.
- Ghosts, pumpkins, cauldrons and black cats all make great adornments for garlands and are simple shapes for children to practice cutting skills.
- Once cut out, decorate your shapes, punch a small hole and thread them onto wool, thick cotton or string.
3 Fiendishly fun Halloween games to play at home
- There are plenty of games that are scarily good fun for all ages to play if you’re celebrating Halloween at home.
- Duck or bob apple – fill a bowl or basin with water, add apples. Players take it in turn to try to retrieve an apple from the water with their mouth.
- Pin the nose on the scary face or the tie on the skeleton – variations on the classic party game pin the tail on the donkey.
- Spooky slime lucky dip – fill a cauldron with green jelly and hide prizes inside for players to have to stick their hand in to find.
3 Tips for trick or treating in your neighbourhood
Our Redrow developments are created to encourage thriving communities with well connected, safe streets, encouraging natural surveillance, making them ideal for trick or treating. Follow these tips to staying safe when trick or treating:
- Homes decorated for Halloween help trick or treaters know who’s entering into the spirit of the occasion. Stick to houses with Halloween decorations or a pumpkin outside.
- Organise a Halloween treasure hunt with your neighbours with a map and stamps at each clue location and a lucky dip prize for those who complete the treasure hunt.
- Colour coded buckets can convey important messages. A teal bucket is used to signal allergies. Either the trick or treater has allergies, or the household has allergy-friendly treats or non-edible gifts. A blue bucket indicates that the trick or treater has autism or other sensory issues preventing them wearing elaborate costumes. They may also be non-verbal so won’t say “trick or treat” or thank you for their treats .
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