Spooky Window Treatments

How fun is this?

We were at home yesterday. An in-service day...following a day off for Yom Kippur = desperate for things to do!

Even though it is not yet October, we decided that it would be a good idea to get started on Halloween decorations.

Yet again we started with an idea from Family Fun Magazine. They suggest doing this with cardboard. I thought poster board would be infinitely easier.

We carefully measured our upstairs windows. This is unlike me. I usually eyeball it and wing it. And then regret it and rig it. This time I was smart and patient and measured. And promptly left the paper with the measurements at home. Oops.

Luckily my intermittent dyslexia (which kicks in when I am attempting to tell someone my phone number and I blank...) didn't strike and I was able to remember that the windows were each 33" X 64".

We went to Target and found black poster board for $0.69 per sheet (which rang up as only $0.57 each...ka-ching!) Each sheet was 28" x 22" so I figured we could stack 3 together with a slight overlap and end up in the 28" X 64" range.

Aren't you glad I am sharing the specific numbers since your windows will totally be a completely different size? I just want to show off how good I am at math. Impressed?

We laid the sheets out and taped them together with packing tape. Then the kids each drew Jack-o-Lantern-ish faces on the boards. Sprouts window has a seam down the middle, so she did it as one big face. Tater was doing two separate windows.

Then we (I) cut out the holes. I did offer to let them cut. They didn't want to. Really.

Is it some measure of progress on the Zen-Mommy front that I didn't yell at Sprout about sitting on the table until after I took her picture?

After we (I) cut out the faces, the kids took white tissue paper and taped it over the holes. They each did a "Dracula" face and used red tissue on the "blood".

Tater felt the need to use the longest pieces of tape he could possible tear off.

I wasn't all that zen about that.


After all of the holes were covered with paper, the faces were ready to hang up.

How happy is this kid?

We used masking tape to stick the finished faces into the windows. Of course, since I didn't actually measure the sheets as we taped them together, the first three were a few inches too long. But we rigged it to fit. Improvisation is our friend.

Sprout's window. Now her room is like a cave. No light is getting in there. She can peek out through the eye holes if she wants a glimpse of the outside world.

Tater decorated our guest room (his room is in the back). He is sad that he can't look at the faces all the time.

I suggested he could sleep in the guest room, but he was freaked out by the double bed. And the fact that we call the room "Grandma's Room". Like she might sneak in at any moment. Scaaaaarrrryyyyy!!

Now we are all set for Halloween. Although I think that the kids are on a roll now and will want to keep going. Tater had some interesting ideas last year. I wonder what he'll come up with as the month rolls along.

This was a fun, easy project that took up a decent chunk of time. And the final results are, I think, "spooktacular"!