Decor

8 Tips for Halloween Decorating

There's more to Halloween decor than jack-o'-lanterns. Take your Halloween decorating efforts to a new level with these creative ideas

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Credit: Flickr/Rachel K

Give your jack-o’-lantern a fully decorated Halloween home

It’s witching time again, and what better way to get into the spirit than by bringing some Halloween decorating fun into your haunt?

If you’re tired of using the same old tricks year after year, try these spooktacular decorating tips:

  1. Creepy corner: If you’re not into turning your entire house into a haunted mansion, focus your decorating attention on one room, or even a corner. For instance: turn that empty spot in your living room into a pumpkin patch complete with a mini scarecrow, or transform your entryway into a witch’s den with a cauldron.
  2. Old-school scary: Making your home look old and neglected adds a smidge of sinister. In addition to the standard faux cobwebs, track down some unpolished silverware, wax-dripped candelabras and ratty old blankets. Old black-and-white family photos are also a nice touch. Smear washable black or brown facepaint on windows and mirrors for extra grunge.
  3. Colour cues: Add in some black and orange accents around the house. Placemats, wall hangings, kitchenware and throw pillows in these shades hint at Halloween without going over the top. Of source, slime green and blood red never hurt either.
  4. Plant it: Pick up a couple of house plants with low-hanging branches and creepy foliage to create a midnight garden feel in your home. Dusty miller, for example, is a fall plant with lacy silver leaves resembling spiderwebs.
  5. Lil’ lanterns: Carve out miniature pumpkins and put tea lights inside them to create festive candleholders. Carve Halloween scenes or faces in the sides to make tiny jack-o’-lanterns.
  6. Sweeten it up: Halloween’s about treats as well as tricks, so gather some of the holiday’s most colourful confections and put them in glass jars around your house. Try candy corn and licorice to match your other colour touches.
  7. Bottled boo! Old wine bottles make great spooky candleholders. Wash them and rip off the label, then stick candles into the spouts and let wax drip down the sides.
  8. Halloween wreath: These aren’t just for Christmas. Cut a bunch of bare branches and bind them together with wire to form a wreath (or pick up a pre-fab one from a craft store). Wind in paper cutouts of witches, plastic spiders, cobwebs and pine cones.

Happy Halloween!