Halloween Decorations - Create Your Very Own Fright Night

Halloween is a fun opportunity to celebrate the spookier side of things. But if you feel too old to dress up in a Halloween costume and shout Trick-or-Treat, then listen up. You're never too old to get in on the fun. Instead of dressing yourself up, why not dress up your home with creepy Halloween props. This Halloween, scare the spooks and goblins that come looking for candy. Experiment with these inexpensive Halloween decoration ideas and say BOO in style.

Halloween decoration idea - a dead flower wreath

Days before Halloween, scour around outside for climbing vines (obviously, avoid poison ivy and poison oak) and wild flowers. Pick handfuls and bring them inside to wither and wilt. Before they become brittle, wrap the greenery around a foam wreath shape or a dried grapevine base wreath. Allow the wreath to completely dry out and fill any remaining holes with more weeds. Hot glue plastic spiders, bloody vampire fangs monster eyeballs or other spooky decorations onto to the Halloween wreath. Twist in orange and black ribbon or ghost lights. Add dead flowers or black berries. The creepier the better, let your imagination be your guide. Once you are spookily satisfied, hang your Halloween wreath onto your door with hobby wire.

Halloween decoration idea - a mob of pumpkin heads

Buy an uneven number of pumpkins in a variety of sizes. Search the internet for cool and creepy Jack-o-Lantern stencils or create your own macabre masterpieces. Draw the designs onto the Halloween pumpkins and then gut and carve the pumpkins. Alternatively, you may paint or draw on the outside of the pumpkins but I prefer the carving method because the pumpkins look spookier and more Halloween-like when they are lit from within.

On Halloween night, choose a location on the porch, steps or yard and assemble the mob of pumpkin heads. The Jack-o-Lantern display looks best when the pumpkins are arranged at various heights. Place some on overturned terracotta flower pots of varying sizes, some on the ground; perhaps even suspend some from hanging basket hooks or tree branches. When Halloween pumpkins are organized in this random and uneven manner, all crazy smiles and misshapen heads, it creates a supernatural effect.

Halloween decoration idea - mood lighting

You want the ghosts and goblins to know that you are home and ready to dish out the treats but you don't want the front porch merrily lit. Further set the stage with sinister mood lighting. Replace the bulbs in your outside light fixture with red or purple bulbs (available at most discount and home stores). Additionally, hang purple or red (or orange and black - whatever spooky color scheme you choose) string lights randomly around the porch. Weave them among the Halloween pumpkin mob display. Drape them from the porch ceiling (if your porch is covered) or string them in the lower branches of your trees. Halloween colored lighting will beckon the neighborhood trick-or-treaters in an eerily festive way.

Halloween decoration idea - a floating sheet ghost

A sheet ghost is simple Halloween prop to make. Begin with an old white bed sheet or a square of sheer white fabric and locate the center. Select something to serve as the ghost's head; it can be a beach ball or anything round- or you can even use a wadded up t-shirt, dish cloth, newspaper or scraps of material. Place the head in the center of the ghost-body material. Gather the cloth tightly around the head and wrap fishing line, white string or a light colored rubber band around the neck of the Halloween ghost.

Draw a fiendish face on your Halloween ghost with permanent marker. Get creative with the ghost face. If you have kids, get them involved, they'll love this part. You can make one 'statement' ghost or make a gaggle of ghosts of various sizes. Put a safety pin in the top of each ghost head to hang them from. Suspend the Halloween ghost(s) from trees or the ceiling of your front porch.

Additional Halloween props and suggestions:
Play scary monster music (see resources)
Hang skeletons from trees
Stick neon, glow-in-the-dark monster eyeballs in random locations
Construct paper bats and cluster them in high corners
Place spiders and spider webs around the porch
Make a few tombstones and create a graveyard
Stuff old clothes to make a headless Trick-or-Treat greeter

Expand and personalize these Halloween decorations ideas. Let your imagination run wild. The fun is in creating your very own Fright Night.

More Halloween resources:
Music for Halloween
Gluten Free Halloween Popcorn Balls
Monster Eye Dessert Recipes for Halloween
Halloween Haiku

Sources:
Personal experience
Home Made Simple Magazine