Posted on Fri, Oct. 9, 2009
As the weather cools, the nights darken and the leaves fall, Halloween creeps closer and closer with each passing day. Now is a great time to channel your creative side and decorate the outside of your home and lawn for Halloween. Whether your goal is to scare the brigade of trick-or-treaters marching up to your front door, provide a spooky reception for your party guests, or merely get in the spirit of things, following are a few Halloween decorating ideas both big and small:
Styrofoam cemetery: Nothing makes even the bravest of hearts hesitate before taking a step than walking through a spooky cemetery. Turn your lawn into a chilling cemetery by buying several pre-made, usually Styrofoam, headstones at the store. For a more creative or personalized option, why not make your own? Cut different-shaped headstone templates out of cardboard or plywood. Use the templates to cut several Styrofoam headstones and spray them with granite- or stone-textured spray paint. Then, paint on funny or scary epitaphs. For an added scare, why not buy or construct a cardboard coffin, and place it amongst the headstones? As guests wearily weave through the Styrofoam headstones, you can slowly open the door to the coffin to reveal your costume and a bowl of candy.
Trees: You can use many—or even just one—stately trees in your yard as a blank canvas for frightening scares. Hang store-bought strings of lights with bat, leaf, ghoul, skeleton or eyeball light covers. Or, try a classic, inexpensive, decoration that continues to have a dramatic effect: hanging a host of wispy ghosts amongst the branches. You can easily cut gossamer ghosts out of cheesecloth, stuff the head with newspaper, tie them with string and hang them with thread. For an added scare, hang decorations that shake, rattle, moan or wail when they detect movement from the boughs. You could also fashion a zip line from the tree and have an animatronic decoration fly out of the branches to swoop above guests’ heads. If you are short on time, simply illuminate trees with eerily colored floodlights.
Lights: The holidays are a long way off, but manufacturers have found a new use for holiday twinkle lights. Choose from wire-framed decorations, illuminated with strands of twinkle lights, shaped like pumpkins, bats or even spooky trees with moving parts. For a more inexpensive decoration, illuminate your house with a simple green or red floodlight, or a strobe light.
Inflatables: With holiday inflatables, decorating your lawn with large, lighted seasonal decorations has become quick and easy. Why not buy one, or several, self-inflating displays? Plug it in, and in no time you can have a giant, lighted decoration that fills nearly the whole yard. Some inflatables even feature moving parts and sound effects.
Nature: If you’re not big on the frightening aspect of Halloween, you can still celebrate and decorate using autumn’s bounty. Make a display of ghoulish gourds and pumpkins stacked on bales of hay, surrounded by stalks of corn. If you don’t have the artistic skill for carving a jack-o-lantern, why not drill holes in several pumpkins using a power drill. Then, place a lighted candle inside, or poke twinkle lights through the holes for festive, easy lantern. If you are itching to carve an unusual pumpkin this year, check out the upcoming MARKETPLACE feature in The Inquirer, the Daily News and on Philly.com for some creative carving ideas.
Porch: For a smaller decorating project, decorate only your porch, and create a haunted scene where you can sit and wait for trick-or-treaters. A steaming bubbling cauldron for your porch is inexpensive and easy to make. Buy a plastic cauldron at a costume shop and some dry ice. Cut a hole in the bottom and thread a socket with a red or green light bulb through. Place the dry ice in a container and add water to create fog. You can even store the Halloween candy dish in the cauldron, if it is safely elevated away from the dry ice. For a more expensive alternative, buy a fogger machine from most any Halloween or party store. It will release fog periodically and veil the porch, or the whole yard, with mist. Tons of cobwebs and eerie lighting are also essential for a haunted porch.
Also, placing several skeletons or stuffed scarecrows on your porch can provide a good scare. Dress like a scarecrow, take a seat and wait for trick-or-treaters or party guests to approach the porch. One silent movement from you will have them running the other direction.
Cobwebs: Finally, if you are short on time or money, nothing may be more effective than a blanket of store-bought cobwebs. Do up your mailbox, trees, bushes, the front door, furniture and the porch light. You can easily add an even more suspenseful atmosphere by playing a good old-fashioned sound effects tape or a scary movie soundtrack.
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