Looking for inexpensive Halloween craft ideas this year? This year I'm into decorating with pumpkins - they're just so cute and they say "fall", not just halloween, so they can be used to decorate your home for the entire fall season.  I recently had a Halloween crafting play date with a neighbor and her kids, thinking that we’d have some fun making Halloween decorations with her kids and mine. Well, Julie (the mom) and I had a lot of fun “crafting” while the kids played and turned my house upside down!

We made these easy, adorable pumpkin decorations, which are great for either indoor decorating or as outdoor Halloween decorations.

• A 16” Styrofoam wreath form (or any size you want to make – I chose the wreath form that’s half-round, but it’s not necessary)

• Cardboard (we used cereal boxes from my recycle bin that we opened flat then cut to the required shape)

• Scissors

• Hot glue gun (low temp is best when using on Styrofoam)

• Cotton batting

• Orange burlap (or other orange fabric of your liking – I couldn’t find the burlap this year, so I used a cotton quilting fabric because it was the perfect pumpkin color)

• Black craft foam (adhesive-backed, if you don’t want to use glue – I just used craft glue since I already had the regular black craft foam sheets)

• Green ribbon

• Fishing line

Cut a cardboard circle to cover the back of the wreath form (don’t cut out the middle; you want it to be a solid circle) and attach it to the wreath with hot glue. Place it on a flat surface and fill the center of the wreath with the cotton batting until the top of the mound sits about 2 to 3 inches higher than the wreath. Cut the orange fabric into 3-inch strips, about 15 to 20 of them; they should be long enough to wrap around the top of the wreath and onto the cardboard backing (about 20” if using a 16” wreath form).

Glue one end of each strip (one at a time) to the cardboard back with the hot glue, then stretch the strip over the top and secure the other end to the cardboard. Repeat for each strip, working in a circular motion all the way around, until the wreath form is completely covered with the fabric.

Cut out facial features from the black craft foam and adhere to the rounded side of the wreath. Loop a 20” piece of green ribbon through the top strip of the wreath and tie consecutive knots to create the pumpkin’s stem. I used green yarn for this step because I forgot to buy the ribbon, but luckily I had this perfectly colored green yarn! Hang with fishing line, or from the stem ribbon.

• Orange and green solid or patterned scrapbooking paper (you can also use construction paper)

• Scissors or circle cutter (if you have one)

• Glue

Cut out 6 equal circles or ovals from matching paper and fold each in half – make sure your desired color or pattern is on the inside.  Glue one half-circle on top of another.  When all six are stacked, pull the top half circle around to meet the bottom half circle and glue together.

Cut a stem shape from green paper and attach it to the top of the pumpkin with glue.

These make adorable table-top decorations or you can make several in varying sizes and place them on your stairs (at the corners, of course!)  These are great because they’re foldable and so they store easy and you can use them year after year.

Here are some great templates to use for decorating your windows to look “spooky” from the outside when backlit – just print them out and trace onto black construction paper, cut out and tape to inside of your windows.