5 creative Halloween decorating ideas

Impress all the kids in your neighbourhood this Halloween by dressing up your outdoor space with spooky store-bought decorations and homemade props. Whether you want to go seriously frightening, mildly scary, or just have a little fun, here are five creative outdoor Halloween decor ideas to transform your home into the best haunted house on the block.

[Photo Credit: yooranpark]

1. Classic Spooky Characters
When it comes to Halloween decorating ideas, you really can’t go wrong with a timeless cast of scary characters. Tape cardboard cutouts of black bats and prowling cats on your windows and doors, and string floating homemade ghosts in the trees using white sheets. Add some creepy crawly elements with oversized spiders crawling up your home’s exterior and faux cobwebs strung in outdoor pillars and doorways. Complete the traditional Halloween look with a spooky wreath of skulls hung on the door and an abundance of carved jack-o-lanterns on the front steps with flickering candles inside.

2. Homemade Graveyard
Flex your arts and crafts skills and get into the Halloween spirit by building a creepy cemetery plot on your front lawn. Construct DIY tombstones using grey paint, Styrofoam, or heavy-duty cardboard and place life-size skeletons on the grass in front of the headstones as if they’re emerging from the graves. Show off your personality by creating funny or morbid epitaphs for each of the headstones — they could be names of family members, fictional characters, or a clever play on words. Use a fog machine and an eerie soundtrack to complete the haunted graveyard feel.

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Need some new spooky decorations for Halloween this year? Let YP find local Home Decor and Accessories stores where you can pick up frightfully fun supplies for your outdoor display.

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3. Candy Land
Delight trick-or-treaters with the sweetest Halloween decor on the block. Make your house stand out with brightly coloured helium balloons, garlands, and rainbow-hued decorations that mimic tasty candy treats. Line your front walkway with seasonal gourds painted to look like candy corn, and create a whimsical forest of oversized candy cane lollipops on your lawn made from foam pool noodles. Add a silly surprise by placing a pair of upside-down witch legs in a flowerpot on the porch using striped stockings, foam stuffing, and a pair of pointy black heels.
 
4. Hospital Horror
Fake blood and a gruesome imagination are the key requirements for creating a haunted hospital scene at your house this Halloween. Set the stage with gruesome props like gory organs and body parts, rusted medical equipment, and white sheets stained with streaks of red paint and bloodied handprints. Dress up mannequins (or willing family members) as bandaged-wrapped hospital patients with realistic makeup wounds and evil doctors clad in lab coats. For an extra gruesome touch, set up a make-believe surgical scene with a slashed pumpkin and its slimy guts spilling out on the operating table.

5. Monster House
Transform your home’s exterior into a grinning monster house using large-scale cardboard cut-outs. Give visitors a fright by adding pointy fangs dripping blood to the top and bottom of the door frame or your front porch, and place a pair of spooky bloodshot eyes in an upstairs window. This simple-yet-effective Halloween decorating technique is also a great idea for turning your boring garage into an oversized, monstrous character.