Halloween gift baskets may include anything from soup to nuts.
Halloween gift baskets should incorporate something personal about both the giver and receiver. Whether the basket is hand-woven paper from a child or a bird's nest of fall flowers, it should be a keepsake and may even be used as a centerpiece for many Halloweens to come.
The Black Basket
Anything scary goes over well on Halloween. Consider putting together a gift basket with a scary theme. Look for candy dispensers in frightening shapes, such as Frankenstein, and chocolate eyeballs, gummy worms and even candy coffins to fill the basket and the recipient's imagination. Place a layer of dead flowers in the bottom of an old beat-up wicker basket, or spray paint a gift basket black. Cover the top of the basket with stretchy spider web material and include a rubber spider on the handle of the basket.
Homemade Halloween Basket
A project that you and your child may do together as a gift for grandparents is a handmade Halloween basket made of card stock or thick construction paper. Each basket requires about three sheets of card stock. You may want to use two colors for the basket to showcase the weave, such as orange and black. Cut the card stock into strips about 1-inch wide and 12-inches long. Weave the strips in alternate colors over and under each other and use paste to keep the strips in place. Add a strip over the top of the basket for a handle. Frame school pictures with twigs or craft sticks to include in the basket, along with a homemade Halloween card. You can also include a homemade popcorn ball to satisfy grandma's sweet tooth.
Halloween Fall-Flower Basket
Create a Halloween gift basket with a natural vine bird's nest. The nest has that autumn feel for Halloween. Fill it with typical fall flowers such as gerbera daisies, sunflowers and chrysanthemums, all of which come in orange. Place a block of florist foam in the bottom of the bird's nest basket and arrange the flowers, placing the tallest and largest in the center surrounded by the smaller flowers. You can purchase silk flowers in fall colors in lieu of the real thing. Tie a black or orange bow on top of the handle.
Coffin Full of Candy
Gift baskets don't always look traditional. For example, add novelty candy to pumpkin-shaped plastic containers and decorated boxes in the shape of a coffin. Fill the plastic coffin with cherry-flavored fake blood bags, false teeth candy, candy bones, gummy eyeballs and worms. Make your own coffin with a shoe box. Draw the shape of a coffin on the lid of the shoe box and cut it out, then use that piece to trace and cut out another shape from the bottom of the shoe box. Cut out sides for the coffin from the sides of the shoe box and tape together. Use tape as hinges for the top of the coffin and spray it all with black paint. Write a funny epitaph about the person you are giving the coffin to on the top of the lid.
