Planning ahead for Halloween will allow you to budget, as well as reduce the environmental impact of the festivities.
Rather than purchasing every Halloween décor piece from the store, consider making your own by reusing supplies found right in your home.
To go green this Halloween, read on for our suggestions of taking old things in your house and turning them into new, spooky decorations.
If you have canning jar lids laying around, this project will give them a new purpose. Gather together lids of the same size. String the lids together, tying the string tightly. Evenly spread the lids around.
Next, stick cinnamon sticks in the center. To create leaves, cut some out of burlap. This goes perfectly as a centerpiece on your dining room table or coffee table. It can also be placed on a shelf on top of books.
If you're looking for creepier decorations, this one is perfect for you. Use a wide mouth jar for this project. You'll also need a great picture that goes in the jar. It needs to be a flattened image of a head. Run a quick search on a search engine, and you should find some great examples.
Print this image on thick and slick paper, making sure it will fit into the jar. Roll the picture and place it in the jar, making sure it fills up about ¾ of the circumference of the jar. Fill the jar with colored water. This can be placed in the fridge to creep out the midnight snackers. On Halloween night, drop a few glow sticks in the jar for added ambiance.
To upcycle old soup cans, use them for luminaries. If you have several cans, create a design in the cans, from ghosts to spelling out “BOO."
To start the project, fill the cans up with water and stick them in the freezer. This allows you to hammer a design into the cans without denting the cans. Use a nail and hammer to create the design. Once the ice melts, dump the water and place tea lights into each can.
Old bed sheets in your linen closet that don't fit any beds in your home are perfect for this DIY Halloween craft.
Cut the fabric into thin strips. Then, take empty cereal or cracker boxes and cover with the white sheets. Once the box is covered, tuck the end in. Optional: attach googly eyes.
Take old cardboard paper towel rolls and paint them pumpkin orange. Then, slice them into thin strips and create pumpkin shapes. Use twine to string the pumpkins together and hang on your wall.
Head out to your backyard and pick up one or two sticks from the yard. You'll also need clear thread or fishing line.
For the bats, you use thin cardboard, such as cereal or cracker boxes. Cut several bats from the cardboard, and hang the bats to a branch. Hang in various lengths.
What's spookier than a cemetery on Halloween? Well, with this eco-friendly decoration, you can have a spooky cemetery in your own front yard. All you'll need is some cardboard boxes, non-toxic grey paint and wooden stakes.
You'll want to cut the edges of the cardboard box so the edges are round like a gravestone. Then, you'll want to spray the box grey so it looks like cement. From there, you can write “RIP" on the boxes to look like tombs. Stake them into the ground and you've got yourself an eco-friendly and spooky graveyard.
Next time you go to the grocery store, buy a dozen eggs. Not only will you have food, but you can re-use the container for DIY Halloween decor and make bats to hang around the apartment.
Take the empty egg carton and cut it into four pieces so each piece has three sections. From there, paint it black with non-toxic paint. Glue on two goggle eyes and hang from the ceiling, door frames or lamps.
This decoration is as festive and as eco-friendly as you can get. Go to your local pumpkin patch and purchase a variety of small and large pumpkins and gourds. You can either carve the pumpkins or leave them as-is and decorate with them.
Adorn the front door with pumpkins and place gourds on your dining room table as a centerpiece. Gourds and pumpkins are the perfect fall decoration that'll be festive for both Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Straw and hay bales are another tried-and-true DIY Halloween decoration. Whether you stack the hay bales outside your front door or use them on the patio and deck, you'll be decorating with a green item that's cute for your apartment and good for the environment.
Corn stalks, also known as maize, are an easy and eco-friendly DIY Halloween decor. These can be purchased at your local grocery store and can be scattered generously throughout the apartment.
Use them as a centerpiece or make a wreath out of them to hang on your front door.
Do you have an old, white sheet that's just collecting dust in your linen closet? Well, you can finally put it to use and make a spooky ghost out of it! Simply take the sheet, stuff the top portion with newspaper, and tie it off to make a head-like shape.
Drape the ghost from the porch or a tree in the yard. You can also paint a face on the head using black, non-toxic and paint. Now, you have an eco-friendly and creepy DIY Halloween decor that costs virtually nothing.
Now that you have 12 eco-friendly and budget-conscious DIY Halloween ideas, you can start decorating your apartment today.
Your family and friends will love the spooky decor and you'll be happy knowing you saved money (and helped the planet) this Halloween season.
Sage Singleton is a writer from Salt Lake City with a passion for literature and words. She enjoys writing articles that will inspire, educate and influence readers. She loves that words have the power to create change and make a positive impact in the world. Some of her work has been featured on LendingTree, Venture Beat, Architectural Digest, Porch.com and Homes.com. In her free time, Sage loves traveling, reading and learning French.