Decorating Your Home for Halloween
I always love it when fall comes around! I love the changing colors of fall, the cooler weather, the long walks and beautiful pictures I can take, and the gorgeous falling leaves.
What I love even more is being able to pull all of my fall decorations out of hiding and cover my home in acorns, pinecones, leaves, and other fall elements. But before I go too far with the fall themed decorations, I get to throw a great party for my friends and decorate with Halloween characters.
I love getting to pick out my pumpkins, carve them with my family and all the little ones I babysit, cut out bats and spider webs, make all kinds of yummy food, and then even get to pass out candy to children decked out in their best costumes. They’re so precious!
Halloween is such a fun time, I can only hope to spread some of this excitement and joy your direction by offering up tons of great Halloween ideas!
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I hope by the end of this article you’ve been inspired to get up and go make something for your home right away. For more motivation, don’t forget I have tons more Halloween articles on Making Fun Halloween Treats, Treats for Those Needing Something More Complicated, Halloween Crafts to Do With Your Kids, and even Fun Halloween Treats For Your Kids to Make!
Creepy Bat Colony
Materials:
- 1 or 2 black posterboards (or black construction paper)
- Scissors
- Something to hang your bats (stapler, Velcro strips, Scotch tape, etc.)
Directions:
The only thing you need to get started is a general shape to cut out in different sizes.
I would draw the shape a dozen or so times with a pencil on the material you have chosen for them, and then you could cut them out one at a time.
I’ve tried to stick them to the wall with a variety of different materials. Use a small roll of tape, Velcro strips, or even staples for the best experience.
To arrange them on the wall, over the front door, or even coming out of your fireplace, check out pictures on the fireplace and this will make them look more realistic.
Ghost Bells
Materials:
- Paper wedding bells
- Black construction paper
- Glue
- Scissors
- Paper clips
- Transparent netting (optional)
Directions:
Paper wedding bells are super cheap to buy, but there’s no reason to spend more than necessary. Stop by thrift stores for discarded wedding bells.
There’s no reason they have to be perfectly clean either. They’re ghosts after all! Unroll your wedding bells and clip them open with several paper clips each.
Cut out face pieces from your construction paper and glue them to each of your wedding bells to make your scary ghosts.
For an added touch, if you wish, toss a piece of your transparent, light weight netting over the top of each to accentuate that they’re ghosts and make them a little more realistic. Arrange them where you’d like to display them and voila!
Painted Pumpkin Display
Materials:
- Various sizes of pumpkins
- Different colors of paint
- Paintbrushes
Directions:
There’s no reason to do this alone. Your kids will love helping you!
Lay out each of your pumpkins, set up your paints and cups of water to wash out your paint brushes and change paint colors, and get to work.
You can paint stripes, polka-dots, plaid colors, jack o’ lantern faces, and even scary monsters. The sky is the limit! Have fun with this!
Now it’s time to arrange them. If you’d like the fireplace arrangement in the picture, stack them together so that all of your beautiful paint jobs can be seen. You can even get creative and paint flames on your pumpkins to simulate a fire.
Arrange them on your buffet table to be a centerpiece for all of your Halloween Party Treats, outside your front door for treat-or-treaters to enjoy, or anywhere else in or around your household to decorate for Halloween.
Chandelier Scene
Materials:
- Hanging ghosts from my article Fun Halloween Crafts to Do With Your Kids
- Fallen branches
- Some creativity
Directions:
We are lucky (even though my husband doesn’t always think so) to have a tree that gives us a constant supply of branches to use to decorate around our home.
Last Halloween I decided it might be a really great idea to use them in our chandelier over all of the scrumptious Halloween treats I made as a nice Halloween decoration for the dining room.
I gathered tons of branches from our backyard, you could do this at the park with your kids, in different shapes and sizes and brought them inside. Our dogs loved this! I slowly and carefully threaded each of the branches through the spindles in our chandelier until it was as full as it was going to get.
If you don’t have the same kind of chandelier. You could tie all of the branches together in a circular pattern and then attach them to the top of your chandelier another way. The ghosts from my article on crafts with children can simply hang down from the branches you’ve fastened to your light.
Related Articles:
Fun Halloween Crafts to Do With Your Kids
Fun, Quick, and Easy Halloween Party Foods for Any Occasion
Unique and Interesting Halloween Party Foods for Any Party
Creative Pumpkin Faces
Materials:
- Different sized pumpkins
- A pumpkin cutting kit (including a cutter and a scraper)
- A nice big knife
- Candles
- A lighter
- Some imagination
Directions:
We searched the internet for fun ideas we really liked and wanted to decorate our house with. I chose the throwing up pumpkin!
Trace the faces that you want onto your pumpkins using a pencil, so you can change your mind if you’d like to. Cut out the top of your pumpkins at an inward angle so that you can set it back on top at the end.
Clean, scrape, and do whatever you have to in order to remove all of the pumpkin seeds from the inside of your pumpkins. But don’t throw them out. Roasted pumpkin seeds are one of the best parts of Halloween!
Now cut out your faces (this may take a little longer than it sounds, but take your time and enjoy the process), and lay them out in the fashion you choose where you would like them displayed.
At night time, place your candles inside and light them up! Enjoy!
Halloween Luminaries
Materials:
- Paper bags
- Black construction paper
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Candles in holders
- Lighter
Directions:
This is an easy one! Trace, freehand, or use a template to draw out your shapes on your black construction paper. Cut out your shapes and glue them to the outside of your paper bags.
If you glue them to the inside, make sure to glue all edges down firmly or you will make them a little more dangerous and they will look funny. You can also color your shapes with markers on the outside rather than using construction paper.
Place the paper bags in the right places, insert the candles (it’s important that they are in holders), and when it gets dark, light them up. Be careful not to move them or knock them over once lit as paper does burn very easily.
Handcut Spider Webs
Materials:
- Black construction paper (or thinner black paper)
- Spider Web Cutting Tutorial
- Scissors
- Imagination
Directions:
I’m sure you’ve all made snowflakes out of paper before. This is the same thing but with black, and the cutting is a little different.
Pull up your spider web cutting tutorial link and follow the directions. I could explain it here but it would be a lot harder without all of the accompanying pictures. Essentially fold your paper in half and in half again, and then at an angle to make a triangle.
Cut strips equidistant from each other out of one side of your triangle, point facing down, leaving one side intact as the bars of your spider webs support. Try cutting at different angles, in u-shapes, etc until you get the shapes you would like.
This can be fun for the whole family!
Styrofoam Spider Invasion
Materials:
- Styrofoam balls in the number and size you would like your spiders.
- Black paint and a paintbrush (or black spray paint)
- 1 or more packages of black pipe cleaners
- Googly eyes if you choose
- Glue
Directions:
You will want to begin by painting all of your styrofoam balls. If using spray paint, be gentle as the spray paint will melt the styrofoam. If using paint, you will want to give them plenty of time to dry before adding legs and eyes.
Now bend all of your pipe cleaners about one-third of the way down the pipe cleaners. This will be your spiders’ legs. When your spider bodies are completely dry, attach four legs to each side sticking the shorter end into the styrofoam.
You may want to add a dot of glue to the place where the pipe cleaners and the bodies meet to ensure that they stay attached. Finally, if you chose to use eyes, glue your eyes in place and then give all of your spiders more time to dry completely.
Place them in spots where they would have the greatest effect inside or outside your home, and enjoy!
Homemade Mummy Wreath
Materials:
- Wreath base (from a craft store)
- White cheese cloth or netting
- Black ribbon for the bow
- Any additional decorations you’d like to add to it
Directions:
If you’d prefer another method to begin your wreath rather than a wreath base from the craft store, consider wrapping thin branches together in a circle and securing them with fishing wire. This is definitely cheaper, although a wreath base will not cost you much.
Cut your cheese cloth or netting into wide strips and wrap it around your wreath base thickly, so you can no longer see the base underneath. Tie your black ribbon around the top of your wreath and then tie a nice bow in it to hang it on your door.
Feel free to add any decorations you’d like to really make it scary.
Bat Garlands
Materials:
- Black construction paper (or black poster boards)
- Scissors
- Single-hole punch
- Black string
Directions:
Just like you did with your bats at the beginning of this article, either trace a bat you already have or freehand them and draw your bat shapes onto your construction paper with a pencil. Cut each one out and lay them side by side next to each other on the floor, wing tip to wing tip.
With your hole punch, punch a hole in the end of each wing of every bat. Now it’s time to thread your string. You can choose to either thread one piece of string all the way through all of your bats, or you can tie a small individual piece of string between every two bats to connect them all together.
In fact, if you’d rather not punch holes at all, you can glue the string all the way across the backs of all of the bats touching wing tips, or you can glue all of your bats together by the ends of their wings. This is really a project that can be anything you want it to be.
String your bat garland when it is done across a mantle, down staircases, around your door, or anywhere that could use some scary bats.
Monsters in the Windows
Materials:
- Black construction paper
- Scissors
- Clear Scotch tape
Directions:
We use a lot of black construction paper around Halloween! lol This one is also open to a great deal of interpretation. Get your kids involved for the best outcome!
Cut out bat shapes, pumpkins with faces, body shapes of your children holding their arms up, imaginary monsters, serial killers with knives in their hands, or anything else you can think of that you would like to display in your windows.
Check out the internet for some really interesting shapes to inspire you. Finally, tape them into your windows with your Scotch tape and make sure to light the room with at least a small lamp at night so people can see your creations!
Vinyl Ghosts in the Mirrors
Materials:
- Roll-out clear sticky vinyl (usually used to cover textbooks)
- Scissors
Directions:
It’s really cool to be able to make ghosts in your mirrors for Halloween, but truly you can cut out any shapes you’d like. Make a scary witch with a cauldron, cut out hordes of bats, make a vampire, or just cut out a little girl shape (you’d be surprised how scary this can be).
So the first thing you’ll do to cut out your shapes is to roll your sticky vinyl completely out. Draw whatever you’d like to cut out of it straight onto the vinyl with a pencil (if you’re cutting out a ghost, don’t forget the eyes and mouth).
Cut out your shape, still attached to the paper. If you’ve ever covered a textbook in high school, you might be an expert at this, but if not, follow these directions.
Peel just a little bit from the bottom of your character and arrange it according to the bottom of your mirror. Now, as you slowly peel the paper from your creature, make sure that you are rubbing with your fingers across the bottom to keep out any bubbles.
Don’t fear pulling it off and starting over if needed. After a mirror or two, you will be a pro at this! And don’t forget the eyes and mouth!
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Decorating your home may be just the project to get you into the spirit of the season. You don’t have to “celebrate” Halloween. We just use this as a good excuse to do fun projects, make fun foods, take our kids around for candy, and decorate our home in a fun way.
This is just a precursor to Thanksgiving and your fall decorations, and Christmas and your winter decorations. Some of us are getting a head start on the celebration of autumn, the changing colors, the cooler weather, and the beautiful falling leaves.
Have fun with this and the rest of your family will too!
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