Decorating on a Dime: Haunted Halloween

Anyone who knows me knows that behind my sweet exterior crawls an inner darkness. How else do you explain the novels I've written like "The Harvest", my love of scary movies, or the countless times I've hidden at the end of a dark hallway crouched like the Grudge girl to welcome Justin home. And you better believe that Evie will find me hiding in her closet scratching on the wooden doors more than once.

So it's no surprise that Halloween is one of my absolute favorite holidays.

Over the past 5 years Justin and I have slowly collected Halloween decorations - a lot of which are homemade and cost very little. Unfortunately I've had to get rid of a lot of them over the years as we moved 3 different times and certain (sad) decisions had to be made about what got to come along to each new home.

But having to start my stores of haunted paraphernalia over again just gives me an excuse to Pinterest new ideas and nerd out making them.

Shadow Monsters

These are SO easy to make and as cheap as you can find poster board for. All you need is black poster boards, scissors, and a large window or two. Draw the monster of your nightmares on the poster board and cut out along the edge. Tape the monster into a large window and when the light is on, it looks like monsters have come out to play.

Bats, Spiders, and Skulls

Top left photo

These are equally as inexpensive and I actually just used the scraps from the Shadow Monsters. Tape a thin piece of thread or fishing line to each critter/skull and tape to your ceiling. When the heater turns on, it makes them move and casts wriggling shadows along the wall - very spooky. If you don't have thread, or want to make this even easier, you can just tape your creations directly to a wall.

Door Scene

 

Using colored paper, scissors, and tape measure the size of your door and cut your paper accordingly. Create a haunted scene inside or outside to welcome in this amazing fall holiday.

Milk Jug Ghosts

Collect empty milk jugs and, using that same black poster board paper, cut out eyes and mouth shapes to tape onto the outside of the jugs. Fill the jugs with purple and orange Halloween lights. When turned on, your ghosts will glow even in the darkest room. Make sure to cut a hole out of the back of the jug for the lights to easily reach an outlet.

Abandoned Rooms

Drape all of your furniture in white sheets. This gives the room a creepy feel while also protecting your furniture if you end up hosting the craziest Halloween party of the season.

Witch's Hat

Buy a witch's hat cardboard form from your local craft store and a handful of feathers. Hot glue feathers to the form and embellish with a sparkly buckle cut out of card stock paper.

Stuffed Pumpkins

All you need to make your own stuffed pumpkin is a roll of toilet paper, batting, and a 1.5' x 1.5' piece of fabric along with any embellishments you want to add (a stick or rolled up paper bag for the stem, hay, leaves, etc.). Wrap a strip of batting around the toilet paper to help round it out. Set the toilet paper/batting combo in the center of the fabric and pull all of the corners up, tucking them into the center of the toilet paper.

You have two options at this point: 1) while holding the fabric in place, insert your stem to hold everything together. This way you can use the toilet paper after the holiday is over. 2) use a dot of hot glue to hold the fabric in place. Then you don't have to worry about it coming undone.

For other fun Halloween decorations, check out these ideas.

Need some costume ideas? Check out some simple costumes we've done that cost little to nothing here.