The Croft Magazine// By Fiona Defty, Second Year, Neuroscience PHD
With Halloween lurking just around the corner don't get caught unprepared - take these tips on how to decorate your house or halls to create a spooktacular scene on a student budget!
Homemade Halloween creatures are a quick and cheap way to make your space seriously spooky this Autumn. This includes ghost and bat decorations.
To create ghosts galore all you will need is a tissue, sharpie and thread. Take the tissue and pinch the centre so it falls down from the middle, then draw a frightening face on one side with black sharpie. Hang up from the centre with a piece of thread and just like that you have yourself a new boo!
Bats can be easily crafted from black paper: fold the paper in half and draw one side of a bat with the centre of its body along the fold, then cut out and unfold. You can make one as a template, draw round it, then cut multiple layers of paper at once to mass produce. They may look scary at a party but at least you can be sure the paper variety won't lead to any deadly pandemics...
If you fancy some Halloween magic then here is how to whip up your own colour changing witches' brew! Boil up some red cabbage until you get a rich purple juice. Strain off the liquid then simply pour into glasses and top up with extra water. Add various acids and alkalis of different strengths (vinegar, lemon juice, baking powder etc) and watch the colour change to give vividly coloured party decorations. Just be careful that nobody drinks anything containing non-edible chemicals!
Another tip to add a natural seasonal touch to your decor, is with conkers or autumnal leaves that you've collected. Or display Halloween themed chocolates for decorations that double up as dessert! Both can look cute displayed in pumpkin baskets.
And of course who could forget the classic carved pumpkin. Grab a pumpkin (or whatever carvable fruit you have to hand - I've seen butternut squashes, oranges and peppers all used in declining order of success...), slice off the top, hollow out the inside and get carving your most fearsome faces! Hugh Brady's face on a pumpkin anyone?... scary.
So this Halloween make sure to get creative with plenty of spooky DIY decorations and hours of fun pumpkin carving to put off doing those essays!
Make sure to check out The Croft Magazine on Instagram for more Halloween inspiration!
Featured Image: Epigram/Ania Townsin
