I’m still amazed that it’s really October! The conversation at our house has pretty much turned to non-stop Halloween topics. Same for you? I keep warning the kids that Halloween is not a big deal in France (and that October 31st falls during a 2-week school break), but they can’t help themselves.
They are daydreaming about throwing a party for their friends. Bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving, maybe a spook house in the barn. Martha’s new book Handmade Holiday Crafts, came in the mail last Friday, so they’ve been taking turns bookmarking their favorite ideas from the Halloween section. Personally, I’m feeling drawn to the glittery projects (skulls, bones and pumpkins). I suppose I’m just looking for an excuse to get my glitter on.
Have you started making Halloween plans? Are you hosting a Halloween party this year?
UPDATE: The good people at Martha Stewart saw this post and want to offer 5 (autographed!) copies of Handmade Holiday Crafts to Design Mom Readers. So this post just turned into a giveaway. Woot! To enter, leave a comment below telling us about your favorite Halloween craft or tradition. The five winners will be announced on Wednesday.
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The winners are Kelly, Rik, M. Peterson, Heather and Janeannechovy. Thanks for playing!
We have had such fun making scarecrows from craft paper and laminating them so they stand up to being outside hanging. I really love the fall colors, although the kids really love the candy…..
Our favorite halloween tradition is carving pumpkins. All the kids help out with the cleaning of the inside of the pumpkin and carving it (to the best of their abilities). We usually have The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown show on in the background. It’s one fo the few nights out of the year that dinner and how clean the house is doesn’t matter.
My favorite Halloween tradition was getting together with the neighbors on our front porch and passing out treats together. One neighbor would make ‘voodoo soup’ and everyone else would bring chips, drinks, etc. Great times!
Costumes and makeup. I’m all about the costumes (upcycled) and makeup
Our favorite part of Halloween is always carving the pumpkins.
After our kids come home from trick-or-treating we watch The Nightmare Before Christmas while they sort through their candy. A Halloween movie that starts getting them excited for Christmas too!
I love Martha Stewart! My favorite Halloween tradition is taking my son and his daycare trick or treating through downtown Seattle. We go to Fran’s Chocolates
Love going to the farm to get pumpkins, then scooping it all out and putting it in the oven. love the aroma to make it officially feel like fall.
I LOVE Martha Stewart! She is the Queen of Halloween! I would adore an autographed copy of her book!
Carving a pumpkin together as a family… So fun!! :)
My favorite tradition is to make crafts with my children. Each one is perfectly unique!
I guess this is a tradition, I love Halloween so much that I add a new Halloween decor item every year. I usually manage to find something that can stay up all year. Of course, it takes months for my kids to decide on their costumes. I almost always make them.
My favorite Halloween tradition is to dress up and draw some pumpkins!
We like to carve our pumpkins and decorate sugar cookies.
We just moved to Denver from Barcelona!! I have to little girls & no clue about Holidays crafting… So i will love to have these book so we can learn our new traditions. Thank you.
That glittered bone hand is amazing! We love the costumes around here, the planning starts in August. :)
Because my kids are not quite knife-wielding age (3 & 7), we like to pick a craft to do together. We’ve glittered a sign for the door, made cupcakes, and made glittered skulls.
Love Martha!
When I think of Halloween, I think of creating new homemade decorations, having donuts and apple cider, and warm carrot chowder with cheese in a pumpkin shaped bread bowl Halloween night.
we love love love Halloween and would love some fun new craft ideas as well. This year we have already made scarecrows and paperbag pumpkins. My husband loves to make spooky food creations like mummy dogs and alien juice. It’s just so much fun!
Hope I win!
I love making halloween themed food!! So fun looking through recipes :)
We always have a carnival in our backyard. I love Halloween because tacky = fantastic!!
i love deciding what i will do with my pumpkins every year. paint, monogram, glitter, mod podge? there are too many fun options out there!
Love all the pumpkins.
We love visiting the local farms for pumpkin picking, hay rides & the corn maze, then home for some hot apple cider!
Now that my children are old enough to help decorate for Halloween that has become my favorite part. They love figuring out where everything will go and surprising each other with the scary stuff.
How cool! We don’t have any Halloween traditions but my son and I just went to joann’s this morning to pick up supplies for homemade decorations. He’s 3 and is at such a fun age for holiday crafting!
We love fall at our house…and my oldest was born in October, so we always try to do something fun/halloweenish for her parties! Our favorites are going to the pumpkin patch and carving pumpkins (of course). This year we went on a nature walk and collected different types and colored leaves, kids loved it! We’d love to get creative with home crafts…this book would be perfect!
Every year my family (mom, dad and two sisters) would get together with our closely family friends (mom, dad and two brothers) and make a big pot of chili and eat together. Afterward, we’d all go trick or treating together! So fun!
love making costumes for my kids!
Ooh, that would be a great book! Some of Martha’s ideas are too complicated for my taste, but she also has lots of great simple ideas. I could try some with my daughter!
We are just getting started decorating here. Each year we let our boys add 1 or 2 things to our growing collection of decorations. They are looking forward to trick or treating and their costumes.
We have a tradition of going to a pumpkin patch to select our pumpkins several weeks before Halloween and then carving them shortly before. Love Halloween and the “fallness” of it all!
Pumpkin carving with the kids (and drinking warm apple cider!!)
Great giveaway! I think my two favorite traditions were hunting through thrift stores and my mom’s closet to find pieces for Halloween costumes, and roasting the pumpkin seeds after carving!
As a child my favorite tradition was trick-or-treating, of course, followed by carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds! Now, instead of carving pumpkins we let our kids color on them with permanent markers. We don’t want to invite bugs or critters so this is a win-win!
We love making caramel apples every year!
Nice. We love Halloween.
I always host a large pumpkin carving party for friends and family. It’s become a tradition that I just couldn’t live without. I always head straight to Martha Stewart when I start the planning process.
Our most fun Halloween tradition is that all the kids on our street (and the parents) go trick-or-treating together, usually with some kind of warm and delicious alcoholic beverage to sip :)
We never went trick or treating in England, but we always made our costumes and had a party.
Looking forward to seeing yours.
I love seeing all the kids come to the door dressed up.
My kids love to dress up and get full make-up faces (by me) on Halloween night. Spooky shaped cookies and pumpin filled roll-up cake with hot cocoa after their trick or treat round up are favorites.
This giveaway is great… Martha’s book is a-must to get into the season spirit!
It’s a Halloween/Fall tradition. My mom (who was thrifty and clever) had us kids go into the park and collect bags and bags of the biggest and prettiest fall leaves – and then she would tack them to the entire front porch. It looked amazing. Now it’s my turn to be the mom and create fun!
I always love getting dressed up as a family. In the past we have done Goldie Locks and the 3 Bears, The Wizard of Oz, and this year we are going as a family of Angry Birds! The kids love to have their mom and dad participating in the fun :)
I love the tradition of trick or treating. How fun!
Woo Hoo! I love Martha, what a fun giveaway!
One of our favorite Halloween traditions is carving a big pumpkin the day before. The day after Halloween, we cook the pumpkin in the oven, and use the puree to have pumpkin pie made by my husband on Sundays.
My current halloween tradition is to DIY a fun costume with a friend of mine and then ride public transit all over the city taking pictures of ourselves doing “normal” things in funny costumes. My favorite so far was being a Lego in San Francisco – everyone on BART was so excited to see us!
My kids are so excited — I just announced last night that we’ll be hosting a small Halloween party, the weekend before. They are chock-full of ideas for decor and snacks. Our favorite tradition is decorating around the house, and trick-or-treating through our streets and saying hi to friends on the Big Night.