Jennifer Sheahan: Tiny-home tricks and treats for a sustainable Halloween that's weird and wonderful
At Halloween Jennifer Sheahan uses homemade, sustainable decorations, inside and out, and also bakes her own treats.
I adore Halloween, and I love that Ireland is leaning more and more into the weirdness and having fun with it. I love walking past creepy skeletons and gravestones poking out alongside driveways. I love the giant spiders crawling down houses and cute little painted faces shouting “trick or treat”.
One of my neighbours annually creates a hilarious scene in their garden of global figures exchanging funny dialogues, and I really get a giggle from that. Most of all, I love any holiday that gives me a day off with no obligation to exchange presents or cook elaborate meals.
I don’t love the incessant fireworks, but luckily, my dog doesn’t seem bothered by them, so I don’t have it as bad as some. I also don’t love storing decorations throughout the rest of the year — in fact, I couldn’t even if I wanted to, because my house is teeny tiny and storage is at a premium.
It’s tempting to buy a load of tat online and throw it out after the 31st, but that’s needlessly wasteful, and there are far more fun and creative ways to decorate your home without having to fill the bin afterwards. Here are some fun, easy, storage-free decoration and baking tips to get you ready for Halloween.
Some holiday decorations pack away small and require little storage, but the best ones don’t require any storage at all. Anything consumable fits into this category, and Halloween has plenty of suitable options. Pumpkins are the obvious choice.
I love pumpkins, and carving them up is so much fun. It’s worth picking up a pumpkin carving kit — Eason and Art & Hobby have them, as do most party shops — as most intricate designs require specialist tools, but you can certainly make do with a knife and whatever else you have lying around.
Recently, the old Irish tradition of turnip heads has become more popular, and though I prefer eating pumpkin, I must say the turnips look extra spooky. You can carve terrifying faces into the side and stick them on a fence post. If you want to skip the carving altogether, grab a black Sharpie and draw funny or creepy faces instead. Come the first of November, straight to the compost heap they go.
If having rotting food lying around isn’t for you, candles are another great consumable for any holiday — pumpkin candles, skull candles, and especially groups of black tapered candles are all excellent for spooky decor that disappears after the holiday.
Dried foliage is another option, if you have a flair for assembling such things — branches draped with spiderwebbing and dead leaves wrapped into wreaths are easy enough to do. You can also gather dried twigs, leaves, and branches and pop them in a vase. Scraps of black lace, torn bits of fabric, or any ribbons and buttons that give off creepy vibes can be draped in between. Nobody said Halloween had to be beautiful.
My first Halloween in this house was in 2020, and having just moved in post-renovation, I decided to make some cardboard silhouettes for the windows as an easy and temporary option, assuming I’d have things more together by 2021. Five years later, and I still trot them out every year, because they look great and they take up hardly any storage at all.
You can always skip the cardboard altogether and head straight to your window with some liquid chalk markers. You can doodle directly onto glass and wipe it away afterwards — no storage required. You can bust them out again at Christmas (but we won’t talk about that yet).
I have such a sweet tooth, and I love baking, so I often justify excessive holiday sugar consumption by calling it decorations. Easter is the perfect holiday for this, of course, but Halloween is a great time for eating sweet things too. I don’t like storing specialist baking tins (I make two exceptions: a Christmas tree tin and some seasonal cookie cutters), so here are two low-effort and fun treats to make for the little tricksters.
Toffee apples are fun, yummy, and easy. Plus, they contain a full apple, so they’re borderline healthy. It is recommended to soak your apples in boiling water for a few minutes, then pat them dry to remove the wax.
To make four apples, melt 200g caster sugar, 100ml water, one teaspoon lemon juice, and two tablespoons of golden syrup together in a pot until it reaches 150C.
You can add a few drops of red food colouring for extra spookiness. Push a lollipop stick into each apple and dip into the sugar mixture — just a thin coating, as it will set hard and crack your teeth if it’s too thick. I like to draw on funny faces with melted chocolate.
It’s also really fun and easy to make monster Rice Krispies squares. To make 10-12, I melt two cups of mini-marshmallows with a tablespoon of butter in a pot on the hob, then stir in two and a half cups of Rice Krispies. You can double or triple this easily to make more. You can also add vanilla or sprinkles if you like.
Line or grease a baking tray or casserole dish and press the mixture in. While that’s cooling, melt white chocolate over a double boiler. Separate into three (or more) bowls and mix in different food colourings.
Once the Rice Krispies squares are cool, cut them to whatever size you like. Dip the top half into the various melted chocolate colours, then stick on googly eyes to make monsters — you can buy edible ones, or make them using cut-up mini-marshmallows or white chocolate chips and black food colouring.
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