Decorating for Halloween
I love this time of year! And this year I’m really getting into it, inside and outside of the house. Most of our decorations get recycled year after year, and each Halloween I try to pick up a couple new things to slowly grow the collection over time. Take a Halloween tour of our house and learn how we created it all below (with links throughout to help you recreate the look).
The front yard
The cemetery
The fence
I snagged this real metal fence and because of the rest of the decorations it really screams ‘Halloween’ for this time of year. I’ve seen plenty of awesome already-spooky Halloween fences for sale, but I love when things can pull double duty, and even more when we don’t have to worry about storing something year-round! Going with a “normal” fence and doctoring it up a bit in October means the rest of the year we can use the fence segments as trellises in our side yard, without the extra decorations, of course.
Dead and Breakfast sign
You’ve probably seen similar signs floating around the interwebs. I finally decided to make my own using a short post from the hardware store, scrap wood from old projects, some wood filler, house paint, eye hooks, and for an extra touch, some craft moss and a faux crow. Check out our full sign tutorial here.
Dead ‘trees’
I saw and grabbed a bundle of dead crispy branches from the curb when a neighbor set them out for trash pickup, and after stripping the leaves off I dug them into various spots in the front yard to add an extra unkempt feel to our cemetery.
Skeletons + tombstones
This time of year skeletons and foam tombstones are everywhere! We added just a few to really add to the front yard cemetery vibe.
Other details
Spiderwebs – one super quick way we easily and temporarily transform (and un-transform) our normally not overly creepy fence into a haunted cemetery one. We also use the spider webs on the dead trees (kind of strapping them to our nearby live trees) to help keep them from falling over in the wind. The white spiderwebs also make the dead trees stand out a little more and creates protected areas to help guide kiddos more safely through the yard.
Spanish moss – We added this to our live trees to add some additional texture and interest.
Lighting
Upgrade existing outdoor lighting with colored transparency sheets. Here we took our usual white uplighting from basic to BOO-tastic by cutting out circles of colored transparency film and taping them to the top of our lights with clear gift wrapping tape. It’s such an easy way to give instant drama to the front of your house and screams “we’re a candy house!” from down the street. (You could also add them to any wall sconces or overhead porch lights, depending on the specific light – or just pick up a couple colored or color-changing lightbulbs if you don’t have landscape lighting.) Here we were testing out orange and purple sheets, and ultimately decided to go with all purple.
It’s freakin’ bats
The lighting really helps make our bats stand out in the evening. Made of shiny black plastic, they are waterproof and great to use outdoors. Plus, they come with foam adhesive, and are reusable so they’re a great bang for your buck! We used two shapes of bats that seem like the same exact material: Bat shape 1 | Bat shape 2
Front door
Doorbell
This year I picked up a fun little doorbell and used Command Adhesive Strips for a damage-free way to hang it on the door.
Raven feather wreath
Years ago I made this wreath so cheaply, easily, and in about 3 minutes. Using a wire wreath form and black feather boas from the craft store, I just wrapped the boas through and around the wire form. It has held up so well and gives great texture to our decorations. (It’s also so much bigger and fuller than the other more expensive pre-made black feather wreaths I’ve seen out there!)
Inside the house
Even though not many people are coming in our house these days, I still love to have some Halloween fun inside. We continued our bats inside to make it look as if the bats are flying through the house and out of the front door.
Free Art
One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to decorate this time of year is to temporarily swap out your existing art/photos around the house with print-at-home photos and artwork. It’s super cheap (basically free, minus the cost of paper and ink) and can really add a nice layered, fully-decorated custom vibe to your house for not a whole lot of effort. From the gallery wall in our entry to our guest bedroom hallway to our guest bathroom, I pepper creepy little hints of Halloween throughout the house. None of them are specifically labeled as “Halloween” – tarot card art, photos of witches, a raven painting, anatomical drawings and drawings of bats and moths can be found throughout our house and each put out a Halloween vibe. We even swapped out the vintage wedding photos of our great grandparents with some skeleton versions, that look eerily similar!
There are tons of great resources out there for free Halloween-related art. Here are some of my favorites pictured (plus some others in the house that aren’t shown), already sized and saved in one PDF, ready for you download and print out! They are all less than 8.5x11” so you can easily print them on a standard home printer if you have one. Bonus points if you have tinted parchment or brown kraft paper for the black and white line art prints!
Entry + Living Room
Bats
Black cardstock or construction paper, scissors, this template, and time are all you need to create our indoor-friendly bats.
Witch hats
With a set of 12 witch hats, some clear fishing line and as many push pins as you have hats, you can easily create a magical floating scene. I used a needle to help thread the fishing line through the point of each hat and tied a big knot inside the hat and a tiny loop around the metal point of the push pin on the other end. Each of our fishing line lengths are different so we get a nice staggered look. I leave the line in the hat year after year which makes it super fast and easy to hang next year.
Side table
Pheasant feathers (type 1, type 2, type 3) in a vase, a hardcover book (thrifted from Goodwill), hand-forged metal candlesticks with bronze tapered candles and our indoor paper bats create a fall vignette next to the couch.
Fireplace + Mantel + Built in Bookcase
We keep our large mirror up here year-round and then build on top of it to add seasonal flair.
A print-at-home DIY ‘Happy Halloween’ banner, vase full of orange faux flowers, black feather wreath, battery-powered light-up letters (bought individually from the craft store), wood pillar candle holders (we got ours from World Market), orange hardcover books (picked up for cheap at Goodwill), apothecary jars, faux crows, an iron owl, some ceramic pumpkins and some Spanish moss add to the layered eclectic look.
A firepit skull adds an extra creepy touch.
Apothecary jars
We made ours using vintage science lab bottles, these free printable labels from LiaGriffith.com, and various fillers:
Arsenic poison – plastic amber-colored crystals
Bone powder – all purpose flour
Feathers of the crow – black feathers
Snake venom – olive oil; recommend using clear glue to seal the lid shut to prevent leakage when storing in the off-season
Tarantula legs – black fuzzy bump pipe cleaners, cut in half and bent into shape
Unicorn horn dust – fine glow-in-the-dark glitter
Werewolf fur – gray-brown felting wool
Dining Room
Vintage bottles centerpiece
I used a collection of science lab bottles on a cake pedestal to create an easy centerpiece on our dining table.
Eye balls
We got these eyeball orbs to add some flair to our dining room built ins. They also have a set of cat eyeballs that look cool too! We used some green moss (the same we used on our Dead and Breakfast Inn sign) to fill the spaces and add some texture to our wooden dough bowl.
Gold skeleton
Years ago we got a snazzy gold five-foot-tall posable skeleton. It also comes in gunmetal, or you could certainly spray paint your own to match your color scheme.
Guest Bathroom
Hand towel rack
A simple swap out of our usual hand towel rack with the ceramic witch hand adds some creepy fun to our guest bathroom.
Mouthwash
I even printed out a vintage “poison” label on adhesive paper to add some spooky flair to the bottle of mouthwash we always keep in the guest bathroom.
What’s your favorite decoration we’ve done this year? Let us know in the comments below.
And if you haven’t seen this – my favorite Halloween-related video – here it is:
You’re welcome, and Happy Spooky Season!
