October is my favorite month. You know why? HALLOWEEN! It’s only the best holiday ever. You can’t dress up like a zombie and pretend to eat your sister’s brain on Christmas. You can’t gorge yourself on candy you took from strangers on Labor Day. You certainly can’t stroll into work on Valentine’s Day in full pirate garb, parrot included. But on Halloween you can! I mean, I guess technically you could do all of these things on these other holidays, but you would get a lot of weird looks. Anyway, I am all about the spirit of Halloween and I intend to live it up. The first order of business is to decorate my house so everybody knows that I am fully invested in the Halloween fun. I’m talking graveyards, black cats, pumpkins, the works. A lot of my favorite project ideas came from these websites and talented bloggers. So put on Hocus Pocus and get ready for some serious Halloween DIY crafting. Check it out!
Spider Webs
These spider webs are awesome because they look great from the inside and the outside! It’s so easy; you need yarn, scissors and tape. You could even hot glue some fake spiders on the web for extra creepiness. You can see Christine’s instructions at DIY + FYI.
Ghoulish Gravestones
You can easily go out and buy pre-made yard tombstones, but where’s the fun in that? When you make them yourself you can customize the writing. Not only will your lawn look like an extra spooky graveyard, but you can write funny things on the stones to make it fun for the adults and the kids in the neighborhood. “Here lies the Atheist. All dressed up and no place to go.” Ha! You can see directions from Thrifty Crafty Girl.
Jack-O-Lanterns
I like to put my Jack-O-Lanterns outside along the steps to the door so the kiddies don’t fall all over the place when they come to take all of my candy. Domestic Queen, Martha Stewart is a great resource for pumpkin carving ideas. She has over 40 different styles with printable templates! They’re easy to follow and always turn out looking great. It’s a good thing. You can see Martha’s templates here.
Haunted Portraits
This is such a cool project, especially if you happen to get your hands on some old paintings at a yard sale. The portrait Amanda at Heart Tree Home found was already totally creepy to begin with, so adding the glowing eyes made it terrifying. I would probably throw a sheet over it if I was home alone. If you don’t have any paintings, you can easily print some black and white portrait images from Google. She finished her project off with some old fashioned frames and some spider webs. Very spooky stuff.
Spooky Specimen Jars
I love the idea of decorating for Halloween with specimen jars filled with gross things. Maybe it’s because of those few semesters in college when I majored in biology and I had to look at jars of gross things every day in the lab. I find it very creepy. So of course, it’s perfect for Halloween! Michelle from Sustainably Chic Designs has tons of great (and eco-friendly!) ideas for these disturbing decorations.
Creepy Candelabra
Just saying the word candelabra makes me think of a creepy old mansion. This project is the most difficult of all of the ones posted here, but it is so boss so I wanted to share it. It’s from Saw Dust and Paper Scraps and takes a little bit of finesse and some patience to complete. It would look completely perfect with some of Martha’s bloody candles.
I hope these projects have inspired you to embrace the all the creepy fun of Halloween. Once you set this stuff up, you’ll have the most haunted mansion on the block! Just remember to take it down after Halloween. You don’t want to be like the Johnston’s who never take down the light-up reindeer on the roof (except it’s a million times weirder when you leave a faux cemetery on your lawn).
Wow! You’re Halloween props are really awesome. It’s really fun decorating your house with such scary creepy stuff (I like your creepy look cat!). It’s once in a year so better make fun of it. Glad I have found your blog. It reminds me that I have to buy stuff for my kids costume, my family are going to give it a blast they will surely love Halloween party.
Here is a quick & easy idea for a window decoration.Measure your window,take some black card & cut it to this size.Cut a spooky shape of your choice out of the card,now glue some colored tissue paper on to the back of the card.Tape the finished item to your window & when night falls,turn on your room lights,go outside & your spooky shape will come to life as the light shines through the tissue paper.
I really don’t have time to do it myself but your suggestion are pretty good. It will be more exciting to decorate for Halloween together with the kids. We’re actually planning to stop by a costume and decor store this weekend to buy props
One thing that we have been doing for several years now is applying solid black wall stickers to pumpkins to give the effect of a carved pumpkin. The only bad thing about is that you cant see them at night, but they last longer than a typical jackolantern.
Those bloody candles really look spooky. It’s perfect for Halloween.
My family loves to decorate for Halloween. It is one of those holidays that let your imaginations run wild. What I like about most of you Halloween ideas are that they are sustainable and can be reused and added to year after year. The spooky portrait idea and the bloody candles are really cool, and don’t really require a huge amount of cost for their construction.
I would love to have authentic looking headstones to decorate for Halloween. A mortuary near us as a kid always did the coolest display at Halloween.
The Halloween headstone idea is fantastically creepy. I can already see the different combinations I’d put up for the H2012…maybe a black cat doll with glowing jack-o-lantern eyes and headstones all about with candle-lights atop. Wheeeeeeee!!!