MAKE IT EASIER THAN A CUT ’ N’ GUT FOR HALLOWEEN

Far from being an easy, relaxing event to share with the kids a week before Halloween, creating a Jack O’ Lantern is not the breeze your crafty friends want you to believe. That gooey scraping, the dangerously sharp knives that inevitably cut beyond the intended sinister grin, is too much for busy parents to take on. We ourselves prefer to just paint the thing. We’ve spray- painted ours in high- gloss black, in blood red, in puce and in purple, then adorned with painted or plastic spiderwebs, bats or stick-figure skeletons. For the more urbane decorator, a coat of pastel matte chalk paint and some fine black design strokes will create a sophisticated result, no fuss no muss. See apartmenttherapy.com for some chic ideas and colours. And when Halloween’s done, you can still split it open to roast the seeds.