Welcome back to Ask Avery! I'm Avery, and I'm here passing out candy to all my lovely readers! Please feel free to write to me at AskAvery@pietrap.com and perhaps you'll be featured in my next article. Stay safe out there tonight and share your costume photos with us in our Discord! (PS: if you dressed up your pet, you HAVE to show me. Please. I'm begging.)
Hello, friends. I have very important news to share before we get into today's question:
It's finally chilly enough to wear my new sweater! The one I knitted! Do you remember?
It's more autumnal than spooky, so doesn't quite fit the theme of today's article. I'm a little leery of sharing it, but if you all ask, I'd be happy to snap a pic. I don't want this article to be all about me, however, so let's jump right into it.
Dear Avery, I don't have an eye for decorating, but I really want to make something unique for the season that's not a pumpkin. (I'm also not very good at carving pumpkins.) My niece is coming over to stay with me this week, and I'd like to do something fun with her. Any tips? Ideas?
Sincerely, Jack No Lantern |
You're cutting it a little close, Jack!
Halloween is less than a week away. What kind of decorations are you looking for? Indoor or outdoor? Scary or cute? There's a whole wide world of decorative items out there, but if you're still very new to it all I can give you a quick primer and some easy DIY ideas.
I had some time on my hands and was feeling antsy, and I already had everything I needed for a small craft. I grabbed some air-drying clay and a ping-pong ball.
I rolled the clay flat into a sheet. Then, I used a small bowl as a shape to trace around, and cut it so that I had a tortilla-shaped piece of clay. Then all I did was drape and shape the clay tortilla over the ping-pong ball and cut out a small mouth with an exacto knife. It wasn't perfect, but I liked the results.
This clay dries white, so you don’t have to paint it or anything. Set it out to dry, but be sure you have time on hand, because this took a while to finally settle. Once it dries, set a tea light underneath and their eyes will glow.
And there it is! One cute and spooky little friend. (Soda can for scale)
I also am, you might say, a seasoned Halloween Veteran™ so I already had a lot of knick-knacks to pose with my new ghost friends. It's all about the framing and the accessories.
A quick rule of thumb when decorating surfaces: try to cluster items in odd numbers. Like the big pumpkin, the candle, and my ghost are three items. An odd number. If I wanted to add more ghosts, I would add two more, not one, so that there were five items. Don't ask me why this is a soft rule I follow, but it's never led me astray before. Try it yourself and maybe you’ll see what I mean.
I got the idea for these ghosts from this tiktok.
The only drawback is that they do take a long time to try and can be quite brittle. If you don’t mind an extra step, get the kind of clay that needs to be baked. You can build an oven-safe mold and go to town on it.
Or ask your local craft store what they recommend. All of the items I used today were bought at my local crafts store!
If you have any other ideas for fun decorations to make, please feel free to email or message us on our discord.
I hope you have a good time handing out candy this year, Jack. Tell your niece I said hello!
Always, Avery
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