Children's Halloween Costume Ideas

Fabulous Girls’ Witches Costumes

Magical Harry Potter

All Fancy Dress And Accessories Links Are In The Side Panel

Pumpkin Painting and Carving Tips to Ensure a Fabulously Spooky Halloween Party!

Children and adults alike love Halloween. Youngsters play tricks on other children and they love the opportunity to play their little games on older people, too. Aside from that, they also get a chance to ask for candies and other treats from the different houses they visit. Whole neighbourhoods join the Halloween festivities by decorating their windows with spiders’ webs and giant creepy crawlies to amazing effect, and lawns with pumpkins and ghosts. If you fancy having a go at putting some pumpkins on your lawn this year, then you are going to need some spooky designs.

Make this year a memorable one. While it might seem a bit fiddly at first, it isn’t too difficult really and you could always decorate the pumpkins together with your family and closest friends, ensuring a great time by all as you get in the mood.

Here are a few tips:

If there are a number of younger kiddies joining in, then try to get pumpkins with a flat bottom; it will just make things a little easier for them. If you’re all older adults, any pumpkin will do.

Once you’ve purchased the pumpkins, drop by a local paint or craft store. Buy acrylic paints because these are suitable for pumpkin painting. You can get the paints in bigger bottles, enough for the whole family. You can be creative if you have younger kiddies by buying different colours, although it’s best to ask as some may want to stay with traditional while others opt to have some fun with a splash of colour when creating their own crazy designs.

Before you start, try and sort out the design you’re going to carve. If this is your first time, stick to easy because, once it is carved and you have lit your candle, it will look terrific no matter. You can be more ambitious and create scary or even funny designs and you’ll find a lot available on the net. Here is a great site for some fabulous free stencils. Free Pumpkin Carving Stencils.
Let the creative side of you go wild as there are so many fun images you can carve with your pumpkins — monsters, animals, bats and faces just to name a few. Pick something that you’re interested in so that it will be a lot easier to paint on the pumpkin.

Aside from the acrylic paints, you need to buy paint brushes and small containers where you can mix and match the paints. Once you know the particular design, you can start painting. Sit in a circle and put some newspapers on the centre. Place the paints, brushes and other materials over the newspaper. Give each family member a pumpkin then start painting.

It’s a great, exciting activity for the whole family and an even greater excuse to start your party early by inviting friends over to join in. You can put lights inside the pumpkin heads to make the design more visible at night. Do your pumpkin painting a day before Halloween. This way, you will have plenty of time to prepare your costumes, candies, treats and other things that you will be using for your fabulous Halloween party.

Pumpkin Carving and Tools Tips:

Have you ever heard “you can do the job easier with the right tools”? Well, the same statement applies to the art of pumpkin carving.

Having the right tools can make your carving experience faster, easier and a lot more fun. This is a functional bare bones approach to carving simple pumpkin designs. It includes a durable carving saw, a Scraper Scoop and a festive candle.

Step 1: Use a knife to cut a lid for your pumpkin. Angle the knife towards the center of the pumpkin as you cut so that the lid will rest on top of the pumpkin after the cut has been made. Use a large spoon to clean out the entire inside of the pumpkin. It is best if the walls of your pumpkin are approximately 1/4- to 1/2-inch thick.

Step 2: Based on the size of your pumpkin,

you can enlarge or reduce the size of your template using a copy machine if needed.

Using spray-on adhesive, apply your template to the pumpkin.

Step 3: Turn the tool on low and begin tracing the areas to be removed.

You can use the high setting for large area material removal.

The key is to remove approximately the same amount of material on your whole pumpkin to achieve a uniform depth.

Step 4: Once you’ve finished, remove the paper template, place a light source, such as a candle, in the pumpkin, dim the lights, and see how well the light shines through your carving. If you want more light to shine through, turn the lights back on, remove the candle and remove additional material from your pumpkin.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT:

Pumpkin Tool Box Carving Kit:

Whether you’re a serious Halloween party animal or a complete beginner there’s nothing better than some cool looking lanterns dotted around the garden and if your having a go this year then the following tool may be really useful.

Even the least artistic among us can have the coolest jack-o’-lanterns in the neighborhood this year with Dremel’s pumpkin- carving kit. It’s a neat, buzzy little unit that carves off layers of pumpkin flesh to let the light glow through.

It isn’t meant to cut all the way through the pumpkin, and the effect is perfectly spooky. Powered by four AA batteries, it’s got two speeds for superior pumpkin-stock removal, 6,000 and 12,000 rpm, so it’s not a child’s toy.

Why not really impress your friends and family by finishing that perfect Halloween fancy dress costume off with the ultimate face painting design. It’s not as difficult as you might think to come up with a fabulous face painting creation. To read my in-depth review and ratings on the excellent value-for-money Comprehensive Step by Step Face Painting Guide CLICK HERE Halloween Face Painting Guide