• With Halloween approaching, check out this fab tutorial on making mini skull lanterns out of little plastic bottles – she says “milk bottles” but from a British POV, they look more like little yoghurt drink bottles. Either way though, ace!
• SueAnn on Lil Bird Told Me has posted a great idea to make old carrier bags easier & neater to storage/carry around – fold them into triangles. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this since I do it obsessively with every crisp packet I see!
• Have gloves magically disappeared from your winter warmer collection over the summer? If so, you could use the remaining odd ones to make a cute animal plushie toy! Dinner for Mousci has a how-to.
• I love these chunky beads made from old cereal boxes – very fun!
• Finally, in case you didn’t see it, friend of Recycle This Petra made a clothes peg airer thing out of “some electricity pipe, an old iron coat hanger, some rope and pegs” – I want to make my own too now!

(Photo by Care for DollarStoreCrafts)

It’s Halloween this weekend and the crafting world has been a’flutter with costumes and decorating ideas for the last few weeks – some reusing or recycling stuff from around the home.

• Make a trick-or-treat swag bag out of an old tshirt/vest top
• Make a ghost lantern from an old plastic bottle and a sheet
• Make an owl costume out of old clothes/fabric straps
• Other recycling/reusing Halloween ideas

Don’t forget that while “carving pumpkins” aren’t that tasty for us to eat, chickens (and compost heaps!) still love them — just make sure you remove any dripped wax etc first.

Loads of people will be wigging out tonight in honour of Halloween but by the end of the evening, their wigs will be somewhat worse for wear.

Cheap novelty wigs aren’t really made to be used again and again, and have a tendency to shed all over the place when brushed or washed.

But what else could be done with them?

Curly ones would probably lend themselves better to used as stuffing – since they’re bouncier – so that’s one thing. What else?

Other Halloween-related posts:

• How can I reuse or recycle things to a make a Halloween costume?
• How can I reuse or recycle post-Jack-o’-lantern pumpkins?
• Not a post but just a FYI: we scooped out our pumpkin last night, made pumpkin & ginger soup with the innards and are drying the seeds. John’s going to carve a spooky masterpiece into the shell this afternoon then once we’re done being all together ooky, I’m going to use it to make a couple of bird feeders. Hurrah for Halloween!

(Photo by andybahn)

A bit of an obvious one considering the date.

So presumably people scooped out the seeds for eating/planting, and made soups or pies or other yummy things from the flesh before carving the skin into a Halloween lantern — but what can be done with the outer casing afterwards?

Obviously it’s a firm contender for the compost heap but I wondered if there was anything else it could be used for instead.

A container for growing plants in the greenhouse over winter that can then be planted out in the ground in the spring? Can it be dried into anything fun?

(Photo by cybersnot)

Since it’s Halloween tomorrow, how about flipping this crazy blog-concept on its head for a change?

Anyone got any good ways to reuse or recycle bits and pieces from around the house to make Halloween costumes?

Recipes for fake blood? Gore? Green ooze?

What about ways to make realistic witches’ warts, zombie-ish decaying flesh or fake spider webs?

Go crazy : )

(Photo by cybersnot)