Handmade Halloween

Sick of Halloween decorations and costumes, fake cobwebs and plastic pumpkins festooning every shop you enter? For me, Halloween decorations and costumes should be based on stuff you have around the house, not on a load of mass-produced tat you buy and use/display for one day only. Waste of money, waste of the world's resources.

(The award for the most inappropriate Halloween display goes to my local B&Q, which had a 'trick or treat' bunting banner suspended over…the paint aisle. How about a beautiful display of your black grasses, nearly-black Cosmo atrosanguineus, dark purple-leaved heuchera and orange-flowered plants to salute the season instead?)

So here's a truly last-minute way to decorate your home or garden, made from stuff you're likely to have around the house: tiny dangling ghosts.

You will need
• Paper hankies
• Scrap paper
• Black felt tip
• Needle and black thread

Fold the hankies in four, corner to corner, to find the middle. Draw on two black circles for the eyes, slightly below that point. You can add a mouth if you want.

Crumple up the paper into a ball shape.

Thread the needle, keeping the thread doubled. Tie a knot in the end. Push the needle through the paper ball. Now position the hanky so that the needle comes out through the top of the ghost's head.
Squeeze the hanky around the paper ball to give a more drapy shape.

Tie your ghosts to a twig, window catch, mantelpiece… wherever you want.

More…
Last year I made a mini pumpkin lantern from a Cape gooseberry

Finally finished: longstitch kit

About two years ago I sent off for a longstitch kit; I fancied following a pattern for once. I've done some cross-stitch before, both word-based works, and both designed by me. (I'm talking about 'Fuck off, moths' and 'Moho sweet moho'.).

However, it's quite difficult to find contemporary embroidery patterns, by which I mean no cutesy fluffy animals, ugly flowers, ladies in kimono or whimsical landscapes. I wanted something bold and colourful. And I found it. And now it's finished.

It probably took no longer than about six hours in total, but I kept setting it aside.

In terms of technique it was really easy: like colouring in with yarn.

The kit (by Vervaco, £25 from Stitcher) contained the printed Aida fabric, plus short lengths of yarn (and I have so much left). It's designed as a cushion cover, but I think I'm going to frame it. My only criticism would be that some of the printed lines were a little off-centre.