How to have a boo-tiful Halloween with our spook-tacular tips to keep it pocket-friendly and sustainable.

Are you the kind of person to go all out? With coffins and skeletons, motion sensors and police tape? Or do you switch your lights off, hide in the dark pretend you are not home? Whatever your preference, try to be smart with your choices. If you are keen on looking like the scariest house on the street, consider buying second hand, or good quality items than can be reused over and over. If you have an amazing piece of kit, that seems like it has no life left in it, the local Repair Café might be able to fix it for you. If there really is no hope then please make sure you dispose of it properly and recycle it if you can. Read more about recycling your household waste and small electrical items.

For those of you who want to do something, but maybe with less effort, how about having a craft session with the kids? Maybe invite their friends? Use recyclable card to cut out bats and spiders that can be stuck on the windows. Or get them to draw sinister zombie faces that they can cut out and use as masks. There are so many great ideas out there, so be creative and see what you can do.

If you are hosting a party, there are some fabulous ideas on how to turn hot dogs into blooded fingers, potatoes into pumpkins and biscuits into ghouls. Let your food be your decoration.

Pumpkins are the traditional staple of Halloween, but to be honest they are a massive pain in the behind. I remember buying a pumpkin for my toddler, thinking ‘what a fantastic idea! – we can do this fun activity together’…how wrong I was. The inside of the pumpkin is so difficult for a little one to scrape out! He was bored within minutes, despite my best efforts to engage him. After wrestling with this pumpkin for about 20 minutes, I had seeds all over the floor and strands of pumpkin on my face, in my hair and all over my clothes. I thought the hard work was over and now the fun can start. No, the reality was that I couldn’t possibly allow my little boy to hack at this slippery pumpkin with a sharp knife. The pumpkin carving set I had bought was the biggest con known to man and did not make slicing through the tough skin of my pumpkin any easier. The end result was a messy orange ball with triangle eyes and pointy teeth, far from the detailed Jack Skellington face I had dreamt about. I told myself, never again…until the next year when exactly the same thing happened!

I understand pumpkins are a tradition, even if they never turn out as planned, but maybe this year you could consider an alternative. You could buy ceramic pumpkins – maybe even second hand. Or even card pumpkins that can be decorated and used over and over, the kids can get involved AND it won’t go mouldy and ooze manky old pumpkin juice all over you carpet. Or you could cut eyes and a mouth out of black card and stick it on a whole pumpkin. That way, you can make a warming pumpkin soup with it after Halloween. There are loads of ideas online about eco-friendly pumpkin alternatives.

If these alternatives are just not doing it for you, then why not consider using all your pumpkin. For some reason there are myths about the world of pumpkins…I know that’s strange, but there are. It is thought that the pumpkins you buy for Halloween are inedible…which is completely untrue – the seeds can be eaten! Try these delicious recipes. When the day is done, and the pumpkin has to go, please make sure you pop any pumpkin waste in your food caddy so it can be composted. When a pumpkin goes to landfill it produces methane gasses which are very harmful to the environment.

I personally love to dress up at Halloween! But let’s face it, it’s easier for an adult to wear the same outfit every year as we do not grow (well after all the Halloween treats, I grow outwards – but that’s another matter!)

My go-to outfit is a big old baggy t shirt – covered in fake blood (red food colouring) and a pair of pyjama bottoms. My accessory is an old white teddy bear, also covered in fake blood (red food colouring). I paint my face white, with dark eyes, and back comb my hair so I look like a mad old zombie.

I realise that wearing old baggy pj’s may not be for everyone, but dirtying up an old outfit you no longer wear, or even something you’ve brought from a charity shop is such an easy and cheap outfit. Using non-toxic face paint and accessorising with things you already have, or something you’ve bought second hand is thrifty and actually looks more realistic. Get yourself on Pinterest or TikTok for some really cool DIY outfit ideas.

Now let’s talk kids. The shops are full of non-recyclable outfits and plastic accessories that are likely to break before the night is over. It’s so tempting for kids when you go to the shops and little Jonny is desperate to take home the plastic fake arm to torment his sister with…. but speaking from experience, these types of things can have their foamy fingers ripped off extremely easily, and are a huge waste of money, and they are non-recyclable, so the only option is to bin them.

I absolutely realise that you are busy people, and it’s so much easier to just go and buy something. But why not see if your school or preschool do a Halloween swap shop? You could even start one with your friends! There is also no shame in the good old fashioned sheet over the head! Kabode has some great low-cost, DIY outfit ideas plus a recipe for homemade face paints!

If you’re taking the kids trick or treating and they insist on taking a bucket specifically for Halloween, then consider getting one that will not break under the weight of all those sweets and can last for years. Again, I’m sure charity shops will have some good ones for less. If you are feeling creative, why not consider decorating an old cereal box to look like Frankenstein’s head? Ultimately, as long as it can be filled with goodies, then the kids will be happy right?

And if you are a household that welcomes trick or treaters, then how about making some homemade biscuits or cakes, to try and avoid individually wrapped sweets. You could even buy a load of pic n mix and pop them into mini paper bags, to cut down the plastic waste.

I’m sure none of you are mean enough to play any tricks on people – so I won’t be providing any creative trick ideas in this section.

Whatever direction you choose to go in, and whatever fantastic ideas you choose to try, it doesn’t have to cost a huge amount of money and it doesn’t have to be full of plastic. If you do want to go and buy some new bits to update your Halloween, then do shop around, try to buy things that can be used again and try to avoid plastic where possible.

I wish you all a fa-boo-lous Halloween!