Halloween is the perfect origami holiday: the decorations are supposed to look a little crooked, black paper hides every stray crease, and the whole set costs one pack of paper. Everything below folds in under ten minutes a piece, and the window display at the end uses all of it.
Bats
The classic bat is a corner-fold head and two zigzag-pleated wings — the pleats are what sell it, throwing jagged shadows when light comes through the window. Fold five from 15 cm black squares and three from smaller ones; a colony needs variety. They clip to string by their wing folds, no tape needed.
Ghosts
A white square, a few soft folds, and a wavy tail that no two folders make alike — the ghost is deliberately loose, closer to a scribble than a diagram, and that is its charm. Draw the eyes large and worried. These are the fold to hand guests who claim they can’t do origami.
Pumpkins
The flat pumpkin is four folds of an orange square with the corners blunted and a green stem square tucked behind — card-flat, so they double as place cards with a name on the belly. The round option is the inflatable waterbomb folded from orange paper: a real 3D pumpkin the size of a plum.
Black cat faces
Our two-minute cat face in black paper, with yellow marker eyes, is the single highest-return fold of the season. A row of them along a shelf, ears at slightly different angles, reads as a watchful little jury.
Witch hats
A cone-ish flat fold from black or purple paper: triangle body, folded brim, a star sticker if you like. They sit nicely atop the ghosts, which is funnier than it has any right to be.
Candy corn
A triangle folded in thirds from white, orange and yellow strips — or cheat with a single square and two marker stripes. Nobody at the party will audit your methods. String ten as a garland for the sweets table.
The window display
SaveRun cotton string across the window and clip the bats along it at falling heights, pumpkins between them, one ghost off-center where it looks like it is escaping. Silhouettes are the whole effect, so place them where light passes through at night. Store the set flat in an envelope on November 1st; folded paper keeps better than tinsel ever has.
