Before plastic dancing toy pumpkins and tall animitronic lawn zombies, the perfect Halloween host could only rely on nature and a few simple ingredients to create a spectacular interior for his or her Halloween party. Often, these objects from nature made for elegant decor, and were not too difficult to set up.
Fall leaves, gourds and pumkins of all types, marigold and other fall flowers, trees and decorative berries make a statement, alongside simple crafts made of crepe, heavy card stock, ribbon and paper mache. With a little ingenuity and time, a lovely party could be had, without a whole lotta craziness or money.

~Talk about a display piece in no time flat: Gather pretty fall leave and put in a large bowl for the table.

~ Marigolds are wonderful to use for table decor, as their gold and crimson color blend with autumnal decor.

~Place small pumkins and gourds on trays with candles, flowers, or party favors. Or, carve out small pumking and place tealights, or wrapped candy inside.

~For an interesting change, why not skip carving the pumpkin? Place several interesting looking pumpkin and squash on a decorative plate (SEE HERE FOR A PICTURE OF THIS), or wind large ribbon from the top to the bottom of the punkin.rubber Other ideas: cement and then glitter the alternate rounds of the outside shell, or stick metallic hatpins along the grooves of them? There are several ways of embellishing pumpkins without the hassle and mess of cutting.

~ Old acorns were used as a symbol of luck, love, and prosperity in the old world. Decorate your party trays with them, or serve them as party favors.

~ Grape or honesuckle vine wreaths are now commercially manufactured in most craft stores, or can be found at farmer's markets. Decorate with Yellow, orange, black, or purple ribbons, dried flowers, or ornaments than suit your fancy, and hang outside your door.

~ Gather pretty leaves, and place in pretty shadow boxes or picture frames to hang along your walls. You can also display these as handcrafted ornaments (SEE BELOW).

LOVELY LEAF ORNAMENTS
These beauties are simple to make and are quietly enchanting.

What you will need:
*Leaves, gathered or purchased
*Some form of thick, clear plastic: heavy ziplock bag, old photo album pockets, etc.
* Colorful embroidery thread and needle

1. Gather leaves from your neighborhood. This is a great project to involve the kids in, especially if you have a yard full of leaves. If you live in an area where the leaves are too grungy, you now have the luxury of buying commercially prepared leaves from arts and crafts stores. For our purposes, we are using purchased leaves.

2. Take plastic and cut into a 2 squares, making sure that the area is slightly larger than the leaf you will be working with. I like to fold my plastic so that I am cutting both squares at a time.

3. Place the leaf in the middle, between the two squares.




4. Take a needle and thread embroidery thread. NOTE: Most embroidery thread is thick, in that it winds smaller threads together to create a thick skein. If the thread is too thick, you may simply split the thread and pull it apart until you have the desired thread thickness. We split ours in half, using 3 threads, instead of 6.

5. Begin sewing. Starting at the top, poke a hole through the plastic from the BACK, leaving a long piece of thread at the end. Create an "overlooping" stitch: bring needle through front of the plastic, then loop over to the back and poke the next hole through the BACK of the plastic. The thread is thus "looped" around the outside edge of the plastic.

6. Continue sewing around the edge of the square. When you come back around to the top, leave extra thread on the end.










7. Remove needle. Tie the ends of the two pieces of thread into a knot. Then, at the top ends of the thread, tie another small knot.

8. Hang as an ornament. Enjoy!
CITY POINTS: Doesn't take too long to make and is unique enough to be sophisticated.






BOLD BRANCHES: Definitely different!
What you will need:
* Branches, medium sized, washed and dried (if possible)
* Black acrylic or craft paint
* Dark colored glitter: black or purple probably works best (although if you're super-curious, feel free to experiment!)

1. Here, we have taken 4 Medium sized branches, painted them black with acrylic paint, (you could also use spray paint, but why mess with the environment?) and poured on small amounts of glitter on various parts of each, as they were drying. You may, instead, buy these pre-made. Sold as “Halloween Branches” they are usually found in larger craft stores or florist shops during this time of year.

2. Once the branches are ready, use them for decor on your table, or around the house.
If you are mounting them to the wall: take nails and nail the area of your wall where you wish to mount your “base” (bottom of the branch). Nail two nails there--then place the branches to either side of the nail. Wind thick black thread or yarn around the nails and branches several times, until they stay. Then nail two small nails and nail the area of the wall where the top of the branch meets the wall. Wind smaller thread from the top branches to the nail.

3. Decorating your "haunted tree" - homemade ornaments, manufactured halloween ornaments, exotic feathers, old charms, eventiny candles (to do this, wrap small candle/candleholders twice with soft grade wire, leaving long ends on either side. Then we twisted those ends, and formed a hook, which is long enough to keep the candle from burning the branch that it's anchored to).

CITY POINTS: Not necessarily the fastest thing you can create, but you'll definitely be have the baddest branches on the block!