Ideas for Decorating with Antiques on Halloween

If you are like me, Halloween still nurtures your inner child, no matter your age. It's really fun thinking about decorating with those scary Halloween decorations, haunted houses, and all the tricks and treats that you will prepare for those adorable little ghouls that will ring your door bell on October 31^st!

Being an antiques dealer, I love decorating for Halloween with old items. After all, what better way to get that authentic, haunted house look! There are ample antiques that I have come across that lend themselves to a Halloween haunted house look. Perhaps you have some of these antiques in your house, as well. Hopefully, this article will inspire you to use those antiques when decorating for Halloween this year!

Here are my favorite ideas for decorating with antiques for Halloween:

Idea # 1 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

Remember those old glass canning jars with the glass lids, rubber seals, and metal handles? You can use them to make witches' apothecary jars. Simply fill the jar with some ghoulish concoction and label as such. My favorite is to fill a jar with six or eight greenish marbles. Then, I label the jar, "Evil Eyes"!

Idea # 2 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

Put old, burnt tapered candles in antique candlesticks with lots of drippings down the sides. Spread fake cobwebs between them and add a fake creepy Halloween spider. (You can get these props at the dollar store!) As you can see, I decorated my favorite pair of antique candlesticks this way in the picture I took for this article!

Idea # 3 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

With watercolor paint (or other non-permanent paint), trace the outline of a Halloween ghost, witch, vampire, or other scary Halloween monster on an antique mirror, or a mirror with an antique frame. Hang the mirror where your Halloween party guests are sure to walk by and peer into it. They will do a double take when they notice the spooky Halloween specter in there with them! I painted a ghost outline on mine with spooky black Halloween eyes and wailing open black mouth!

Idea # 4 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

Use old hanging hook scales to hang bloody gloves and socks from! Dip the fingers of white gloves and the tops of white socks in fake blood, stuff them with cotton balls or packing peanuts to make them 3-dimensional, and hang from the hook scales. There you have it! Your own scary, haunted butcher look!

Idea # 5 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

Consider decorating for October 31^st by having "hands" coming out of antique urns, tins, or boxes. Remember "Thing" from The Adams Family? Stuff gloves with cotton balls or packing peanuts to make them 3-dimensional. They can be anchored inside your antique prop of choice by duct tape. Cover the opening of urns with pumpkin vine wreaths, fake cobwebs, dead tree branches or other scary decorations of your choice.

Idea # 6 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

I have plenty of antique books from the 1800's and earlier, as well as old spectacles. I usually drape cobwebs and spiders around them, and display them stacked or between old bookends around my living room. However, I came across fake black crows at the dollar store this year with real feathers! Wouldn't it be fabulous to set up Edgar Allen Poe's chamber as in his classic scary poem, The Raven? If you can find a realistic looking fake black bird in your area dollar store, consider setting up just this scene including your antique books and cobwebs! Simply Halloween magic!

Idea # 7 for Halloween Decorating with Antiques:

Take out your grandmother's antique flower vase and fill it with long stem black roses! Again, I found these wonderful fake black roses at the dollar store, but you can use your imagination to create some! As a finishing touch, I added a fake black spider climbing down its string on the side of the vase, and set it on the table below my antique mirror with the scary ghost outline painted on it!

There you have it! I hope you are inspired to decorate with antiques this year! Happy Halloween!!!!!!!!

To read another Halloween decorating article by this author, click here