It’s time to start thinking about decorating your home for Halloween! Whether you’re throwing a party and decorating to the nines, or just celebrating the season and spooking it up a bit, there are so many great ideas for creepy decor that fit anyone’s budget and get you in the spooky spirit! Here’s 8 budget-friendly Halloween decorating ideas for your home!
- Candles. Beyond the creepy factor of wavering candlelight, you can make striking decorations with inexpensive additions to items you may already own. Partially fill a straight vase, hurricane, or small glass jar with candy corn, tiny gourds, water with red food coloring, or wrap them in colored paper with a black design drawn on it and add a candle for a lovely centerpiece or the beginning of a mantle or table scape.
- Jack-o-lanterns. If you tire of the same old pumpkin faces year after year, try adding red tacks for eyes and filling the open mouths with plastic vampire teeth. Bored with jack-o-lanterns altogether? Make a sticky glaze of one part white glue to 1 part water and paint it on pumpkins or gourds, then sprinkle glitter or confetti to give your gourds some bling. Glue bat wings or plastic bugs on these old-school favorites to give them a new look. Add some contrast to a bowl of gourds or squash by using poster paint or acrylic paint to coat a few to add a pop of color (black or white look great).
- Window decorations. Paint autumn leaves white, and draw ghostly faces with black marker, then hang with ribbon or tape into place anywhere you want a little ghostly action! Use white glue and food coloring to create translucent window “clings” in the shape of bloody handprints or drips of blood…they’ll peel off when it’s time to clean up.
- Spiders galore. You can cut out spiders and spider webs out of black construction paper or even black garbage bags and hang them around the house. Buy a bag of cheap plastic spiders (and snakes if you like) and tuck them into flower arrangements, stick them with double sided tape onto candles or lamps, or use Contact brand adhesive strips to attach them to walls and doorways for a truly creepy-crawly look! Have some cheesecloth stuck in a kitchen drawer? Use a toothpick and scissors to tatter it and move the threads around to create a realistic cobweb, perfect for draping a lampshade or adding ick to a door way or picture frame! You can even make small spiderwebs out of bobby-pins, paint, and string!
- Balloons. Forget the expensive mylar balloons with pre-printed designs, make your own! White, cream, yellow, and orange balloons and a permanent black marker are all you need! Take white balloons, insert a green or yellow glow stick, inflate, and use your permanent marker to make a spooky ghost face…you’ll have a glow-in-the-dark ghoul in no time! Use cream, orange, and yellow balloons and add happy or scary jack-o-lantern faces. Hang from the ceiling, light fixtures, curtain rod, or just arrange them on a table top!
- Silhouettes. Download and print some spooky silhouettes and place in family photo frames over the original photo for a quick holiday update. Make larger silhouettes out of black garbage bags or plastic table covers and tape carefully across windows for a spooky look inside and out. Use tiny silhouettes to tuck into glass hurricanes or clear jars and add electric candles for a ghoulish glow.
- Tablescapes. Looking for a creepy place setting for a party or for the kids’ dinner before trick-or-treating? Touch a red permanent marker to a white paper napkin (or drip red kool-aid) and use vampire teeth as a napkin ring! Paint toilet paper tubes black, then cut scary eye designs with an Xacto blade, insert a glow stick and tape the ends with duct tape and you’ll have creepy glowing eyes to tuck amongst your table decorations. Create name cards or creepy fortunes by using holiday paper or torn parchment and rolling into a scroll, tying with black or orange ribbon. Looking for pretty table ideas? Apothecary jars or canning jars of differing sizes filled with colorful Halloween candies makes a tasty and welcoming centerpiece.
- Ornaments. Create hanging bats or cats from black paper or craft foam, add eyes for humor or leave plain black for a creepier look, and hang from string, branches, light fixtures, or mantels. Use orange paper for jack-o-lantern shapes, or white for ghosts. White ping-pong balls, or painted white inflated beach balls can be transformed into eyeballs with paint or markers.
We hope you get some spooky inspiration from our 8 budget-friendly Halloween decorating ideas for your home! If you have any ideas you think we should add, let us know on facebook! Happy Haunting!