Halloween Decorations the THRIFTY way!

Today, you get two sweet, CHEAP Halloween projects in one! Can you tell that I’m a little crazy about Halloween!?!?! I really do love it. It’s so fun put up Halloween decorations.

Ok, so I saw this large B O O at Robert’s crafts the other day. Very cute, large, black sparkly, glittery letters….ummmm what the $150.00….holy crap… that could buy me a lot of pumpkins.

So, the thrifty brain in me says….why not make that for WAY cheaper!?!? Today’s lesson: FOAM IS CHEAP!

My friend Natasha and I seem to have the same ideas. It’s pretty fun. She and I split the cost of a 4 foot by 8 foot sheet of pink insulation foam from Lowes and had fun making our projects with it. For your information, this foam is only $23.00 per 4 by 8 foot sheet. Now that’s thrifty, and the things you can do with it are ENDLESS. I like it because it is about 3 inches thick, so it creates dimension in your projects.

How to make SPOOKY, BOO…or really anything you want!
First, you need to sketch out what you want your project to say. I wrote on mine with a pen, since I knew I would be painting over it anyway.

Then, you need to cut out the foam with either a jigsaw or a scroll saw, depending how big your project is. I used a jigsaw because as you can see, my “spooky” is quite large. (Go big, or go home….our motto).

Next, paint the project with a latex paint. (WARNING, you cannot use spray paint…the foam will disintegrate, no joke!) Make sure to let your paint dry completely.

I debated on the color of glitter to use: GREEN for witches? Orange for Halloween? PURPLE because that’s a Halloween color too…hmmmm? I REALLY wanted black glitter, but a large enough bottle of most colors was impossible to find, so I settled for a silver bottle of glitter at Wal-Mart for $2.50 cents. I used spray adhesive onto the spooky, let it dry for about 30 seconds, and then sprinkled on the glitter. I let it dry for about 5 minutes, and WA-LA the SPOOKY is spectacular and SPARKLY! I looks even better as cars drive passed because the glitter catches their eye! 🙂

Here is Natasha’s BOO, she sparkled hers with black glitter…it is so sparkly in the sun, but you can’t see it in these pictures. 🙁

The next FOAMY project was a fun candy CORNY set of three! I saw some large candy corns at Robert’s crafts, but they cost a whopping $40.00, ummm I’m WAY TOO CHEAP, and THRIFTY for that. So, since I had leftover scraps of foam from the above project, I decided to try and make some myself!

I started out by cutting them into cones with the jigsaw.

Then I started the sculpting process with a knife. And then smoothed out the edges with a lighter.
Got some craft paint, and went to town with white, orange and yellow…AND…I thought they turned out cute! I kind of liked how they look like chunky blocks of wood.
Now, just think of what yours will look like since I’m sure YOU have some artistic talent and can actually paint with some precision! 🙂

Oh, and by the way, my spooky and my candy corns all cost less than $20.00 combined. 🙂