Green Halloween: How can I reuse or recycle Halloween decorations?

Continuing in our Green Halloween series…

Along with masks and costumes, the shops are full of Halloween decorations at the moment too. Plastic skulls & skeletons, plastic pumpkins, plastic spiders & bats, plastic ghosts & ghouls … lots of plastic.

As with the masks, it’s far greener (and more fun!) to make decorations from scratch rather than relying on stuff that’s mass produced on the other side of the world. There are loads of make your own Halloween decorations how-tos out there (for example, these ten different ideas…). But still, lots of people turn to shop bought stuff.

Any suggestions for ways to reuse or recycle these bits and bobs? Plastic pumpkin/cauldron plant pots?

Or how to repurpose/upcycle things to use them all year around – as decorations or for other purposes?

One idea I saw was using skull ice cube trays as soap moulds – while they intend the finished article to be a Halloween party favour/trick or treat gift, why restrict the fun to just this event? I say fun skull soaps all year around!

Another idea for a bigger, harder plastic skull – drill/poke pencil size holes around the cranium and use it as a fun pen/pencil pot – like Pinhead from the Hellraiser films, but with brightly coloured felt tips.

Anyone using Halloween decorations or party favours to make spooky costume jewellery?

Any other ideas?

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4 Responses to “Green Halloween: How can I reuse or recycle Halloween decorations?”


  1. kacy says:

    If you choose solid colored items, like black and orange, they can be used for many other occasions. There is no reason black decorations couldn’t be used for an over-the-hill birthday party or orange decorations couldn’t be used for other birthday parties. Plastic jack-o-lanterns can be turned around so that only the pumpkin side shows for generic fall decorations. I have closed those decorated pumpkin family lawn bags with twist ties so that I can reuse them year after year.

  2. Karmae says:

    A couple of years ago I spun the fibre from the glow in the dark spider webs that people put in their yards with other scrap fibres and knit a shaw. It was part of a “trashion” ensemble for a contest. Came in second.

  3. bookstorebabe says:

    Oh, how clever! I never would have thought of spinning, that’s amazing.
    If you have a young goth wannabe, all the black and skulls will be appreciated. :) All right, that’s reaching. Mine just wore the halloween skull jewelery all year. But a kid who likes creepy stuff might like the spiders, bats and bugs.
    Offer decorations to a school or other organization that could use them?
    I like the idea of trying to use decorations that will also work for generic fall.
    And as you said, make your own is best. But if you have them, don’t want to reuse them, and can’t give them away-look at the components. Plastic, ect., and see what can be made from them, or how recyclable they are. Can they be taken apart and made into something else?

  4. Julia says:

    Hi Louisa, Thanks so much for linking to FaveCrafts! If you liked that link, you may also like “Homemade Halloween Decorations: Blogger Edition 2010” eBook . Have a great day!



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