Elgin father, son build their own Halloween decor

Eric Olson and his 8-year-old son Jack bond over Halloween every year by making their yard one of the spookiest in Elgin. The father and son have been hanging ghosts and growing their collection of skeletons and headstones together since Jack was just 3 years old.

Faced with a tight budget this year however, the Commonwealth Avenue duo had to get creative in order to stay true to their tradition, and boy, did they prevail!

With $50 worth of materials from Hobby Lobby and Home Depot and a little elbow grease, Jack and Eric created their largest yard decoration yet -- a 25-foot-tall skeleton monster.

The skull-faced creature with blood-stained teeth straddles the sidewalk leading to the Olsons' front door. It towers over the life-sized crypt, rats, spiders, ghostly figures and more than 25 headstones, waiting for trick-or-treaters on Saturday.

For Eric, the monster represents bonding time with his son and an opportunity he had to teach Jack about budgeting and building.

To area retailers, the Olsons' monster represents something much scarier -- that fact that consumers are spending less this year.

The National Retail Federation's 2009 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey projects consumers will spend an average of $56.31 on Halloween this year -- down from $66.54 in 2008.

Some 46 percent of shoppers are expected to buy less candy and about a third of consumers will use last year's decorations without buying any new trappings, the National Retail Federation reports.

In case you happen to be one of those cash-strapped consumers this year, here are a few suggestions from associatedcontent.com and robinsfyi.com on how to do Halloween on the cheap.

• Silhouettes: Use dark construction paper to cut out bats or witch silhouettes and place in the corners of your windows

• Milk jug ghost lights: Cut the top off of a gallon milk jug and draw a ghost face on it. Place a tea candle inside.

• Garbage bag ghosts: Ball up some newspaper or use leaves from the yard and stuff a few handfuls into the bottom of a white kitchen garbage bag. Tie off and flip over and voila! You have the head and tail of a ghost. Draw a face on your spirit with a permanent market and place in the yard or hang from a tree.

• Magic potion ingredients: Use paper bags or scrap paper and create fun fake labels for food jars. Turn a can of olives into "toad eyes."

• Ghost: One white sheet and a pair of scissors to cut eye holes.

• Static cling: A solid color outfit, safety pins and anything that will stay pinned on, including socks, fabric softener sheets, etc.

• Clown: Mismatched clothes that are either too big or too small, face paint or makeup and a pillow to stuff in your belly or your butt.

• Tourist: A cheesy Hawaiian shirt, camera, binoculars and maps to stuff in every pocket.