Inexpensive Goth and Vamp Decorating - Vampires 101

For those of us who enjoy Goth and Vamp style, it can be hard to decorate without spending a fortune on special items. I'll give you some tips for getting vampire and goth decorations at inexpensive prices.

When you're looking to do any kind of home decorating on a budget, you need to get creative. Thinking outside the box can be your biggest asset in finding or making great decorations. When you're doing Gothic, Victorian or vampire style decorating, you need to get especially creative.

When you're out and about, look for scarves and bandanas. These can be used as table covers, curtain tie-backs, they can be wrapped around lamps, hung on walls flat or in a swag or wrapped around bedposts. You can also look in the fabric section of your superstore or craft store for remnants. These are what's left after most of a bolt of fabric has been sold. You can sometimes find really great fabric for decorating.

Find doilies and lace tablecloths on clearance or at yard sales and flea markets. The older they look, the better it is. You can dye these items any color to fit your room's theme. Another great trick for making doilies and tablecloths look antique is to soak them in coffee or tea to give them an authentic aged look. This can also be done with other fabrics. You can also splatter thinned red paint or red wine on fabric for the illusion of blood stains. If you have some red beat, you could opt to use the real thing, but I strongly suggest a good wash afterward.

Fabric stores often carry a wide variety of lace and tassels that can be used to decorate with. You can hang tassels from light chains and lamp pulls, or add them to curtain tie-backs. Lace can be used for tie-backs, wrapped around bed frames or the body of a lamp, sewn onto the edges of pillowcases and napkins or tied around vases or bouquets of fake flowers. If you know someone creative, you can even have lace crocheted for you in the color of your choice.

Check the bargain bin and clearance area of your craft and superstores for fake flowers. I have found flowers in dark colors like blue, black and purple in these bins. Dark colors don't sell as well as brighter and lighter colors, so they often go on clearance. You can use fake flowers in a variety of ways for decorating, not just in vases. If the flowers aren't coated, you can dye white or light flowers in diluted acrylic paint or food coloring. You can also use spray paint to change the color of some silk flowers.

It can be difficult to find strings of lights in colors that appeal to the darker set, but there's a way around that. If you can get strings of standard holiday lights, you can pull out all the bulbs and put them back to create strings of the colors you prefer. It takes a lot of time, but sometimes it's the only way. If you're lucky, you can snag light strings of odd colors during the holidays.

Of course, one of the easiest way to get Goth and vampire decorating items on the cheap is to shop your dollar stores and superstores during and after Halloween. This is the time when the widest variety of dark and unusual items are available. If you shop after Halloween, you can catch a lot of items on sale at enormous discounts. And don't overlook costumes! You can dismantle costumes for the fabric and other parts, and convert them into decorations.

If you want to get more ideas on ways to turn inexpensive items into home decorations, I recommend looking up Halloween crafts online. You can begin to get ideas of how to turn common materials into unique items. With a little creativity, you can start snagging all sorts of inexpensive items and turning them into your very own Gothic and Vampire home decorations.