Plastic Free Hallowe'en Part One

The Ideas

I love this time of year. Hallowe'en is my favourite holiday. I am one of those people who will actively deny that Christmas is a thing until at least November 1st. And more than one year I have left my Hallowe'en decs up until December. It just reaches a point where there's no point taking them down without replacing them!

Now, this holiday is a minefield for avoiding plastic pollution. The decorations are plastic. The pre-made costumes are plastic. The sweets are bite-sized and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped in plastic! It is a daunting amount of plastic which goes into Hallowe'en and I am glad I have a few months of experience with reduced plastic living, because otherwise this would be a headache.

I don't have to worry about hosting a party this year, my sister has claimed that one. But I would like to do plastic free trick or treating, I will definitely be dressing up, and I want to deck the house in bats and ghouls!

At this stage I am just brain storming and thinking out loud. Feel free to pilfer, share or improve upon anything that follows. I have been trawling the internet for inspiration and suggestions, Thoroughly Modern Grandma, Skip The Bag, and Exist Green being particularly helpful.

🎃 Costume

The main suggestion with costumes is to not buy the pre-made costumes which you can pick up from any store with a Hallowe'en aisle. Easy. I never have. Not only do I find them uninspiring, they don't fit me. The "one size fits all" system doesn't work if you are over a size 10 and/or 34B bust. I have not been either since I was about 13. 

My usual trick is to cobble together something from my wardrobe or raid charity shops. There are a lot of those in my town, so there was plenty to rifle through. Quite often it's a combination of the two. Last year, shortly before Hallowe'en my partner sorted out the insane amount of coats he and his brother had hoarded. (Seriously. There were loads.) One of them was a raincoat, one of those plasticy, neon ones. LIGHT BULB! I'd just seen IT and this coat looked just like Georgie's. So I hit the charity shops to find a stripy top. After that I cut the sleeve off and doused it in the remainder of fake blood I had from the previous year. Paired them with jeans, wellies and a creepy "We all float down here..." and boom! Georgie from IT.

The previous year I had been Eleven from Stranger Things because I had a blonde wig from my days in a Blondie tribute band and my grandad had a bomber jacket which looked just like hers. All I needed was the blood and pink dress. Easy. My costume inspiration often stems from stuff my family or I already have. So I guess my issue for this year is what to go as! I normally have at least one idea by now. My usual trick is to see something awesome throughout the year and claim it as my costume. One usually filters through the layers of my brain. 

I could make a statement and go as plastic pollution, but the Hallowe'en party I am going to is my sister's - therefore, attended by my family who have had enough of my plastic rants already. Maybe if they let us dress up at work... I'll save that idea for then.

So far my ideas are:

🎃 Mermaid

🎃 Shark/Ocotopus/Marine Creature

🎃 Rainbow Monster from Dirk Gently (Maybe convince my partner to be Dirk!) ((Totally never going to happen.))

🎃 Molly Weasley

🎃 Alanna of Trebond

(The last two purely because of my awesome, short ginger hair.)

Circa 2010. If I didn't own it, my mum did.

Side effect of the fake blood.

🎃 Trick or Treat!

I have left out sweetie bowls a couple times, but between where I used to live and working evenings it was never really successful. But this year, I am on a road with kids on it and I finish at 6:30pm! So hopefully, we will get a trick or treater or two.

I will definitely not be handing out bite-sized anything. I could buy gummy worms and things of the like, but it still comes in plastic, just less of it. So I thought about making sweets. The internet suggested handing out plastic free reusables; but that just seems unnecessarily expensive. And you have to take into consideration that kids will want sweets. I made my search on pinterest a little more specific, sweet recipes. Even that just gave me cake recipes! I had to search candy. So American.

However, it did give me some good ideas. One of the few ideas I liked from the trick or treat suggestions was putting things in paper bags, so if I can find and/or make some nice ones, I will be handing out goody bags with homemade sweets in them. Ever the lover of Hallowe'en, they will be trick or treat sweets.

I found chocolates with different centres made in ice cube trays. Genius. I have Hallowe'en and dinosaur ice cube trays. So I could put marshmallows in some and something more tricky in others. Haven't decided yet. Ginger, maybe? Another one which caught my eye was handing out popcorn. I can already make popcorn and I have been craving to try making my own toffee sauce. So I can two birds, one stone it. And make a batch with hot sauce in. You know, trick or treat!

And on the trick theme, I saw roasted veg cut into pumpkins and bats. I am feeling that!

Made by my mum. Being extra at Hallowe'en runs in the family.

 🎃 Decorations

Normally, I would be tempted by the multitude of decorations available at my local supermarket. In fact I was. But is it my fault? They had a mermaid skeleton! It would have been criminal to not buy it. It's the only one I'm going to buy though. I promise. I will also leave her up all year round. But anyway. I have quite a few decorations which I have saved over the years, so I will reuse them to get the most out of them. 

The big suggestion I have seen is to use natural objects to decorate. This is such a beautiful season. Orange leaves, pine cones, conkers - all fall in multitudes this time of year and be artfully arranged as decorations. I definitely want to give this a try. Hopefully we'll get a dry, free afternoon soon where we can go for a walk and "shop" for some decorations in nature.

There were some upcycling ideas too, like mummifying wine bottles or making bogroll monsters. I saw something about painting mason jars black to make tea light holders. I don't want to buy mason jars just to "upcycle" them; but I do use glass jars in my cooking. Curry jars, pesto, etc. I can have a play about with those. And I don't need tealights. I have hundreds. My old flat was very cold and they were supposed to trick me into thinking it was warm. It did not work.

My last decoration idea is rather adventurous and I may need to enlist my mum's help with it, as she is the superior baker. Morrisons always have these awesome looking gingerbread houses or trains, which are always far too expensive to justify buying. (Plus, all that plastic.) So this year, I want to make my own gingerbread house. Now, I may run out of time before Hallowe'en so I can always push this back to Christmas time.

Less bloody handprint, more fluff magnet

 🎃 Pumpkins

If the emoji isn't anything to go by, you can't do Hallowe'en without a pumpkin. I'm not sure why there are alternatives to pumpkin carving, but apparently pineapples are a good alternative. No. Just use the pumpkin.

One suggestion was sensible. Keep the seeds and plant them for next year. I am definitely going to do this. My partner and I are amateur gardeners, and this project is right up our alley. We replanted our Christmas tree last year with the intention of using again this year, so why not apply the same logic to our pumpkins? I am excited to try this.

But what to carve onto my pumpkin? I am not fantastic at it. My eye for design is not as good as my brain thinks it is and they always come out a little wonky. One year, I opted for the puking pumpkin, to avoid the whole "being artistic" thing. But if I want to plant the seeds, this may not be viable.

My ideas so far:

🎃 Recycling symbol

🎃 Standard scary face

🎃 Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas

🎃 Shark

🎃 Mermaid

Mum's Spongebob masterpiece of 2010

My vomming pumpkin featuring Dylan's scribble pumpkin, circa 2014

So I have a lot to mull over. Any ideas? Suggestions? What are you doing to make Hallowe'en plastic reduced or free?