Have you waited until the last second to decorate for Halloween, ran to the store, and realized all the spooky decor has sold out? Well, Newsweek has asked interior experts for DIY decor ideas that you can make at home. Whether you live in a big suburban house with a spacious garden or in a small city flat with very limited space, Halloween offers you the opportunity to turn your house into an evil pad for the season, spooking your neighbors and everyone else who turns up at your door.
From pumpkins of all shapes and colors to putrefied corpses, garden zombies, floating ghosts and evil bats, when it comes to spooking up your home the choice is vast, and all you have to do is find the pieces that thrill you the most.
Go Simple With Your Decorations
Elda Bellone, architect and design consultant at Gessato Design Store told Newsweek that her best advice is to go with simple, minimal decorations.
She said: “Our vision and approach has always been less is better, so our advice would be to avoid using too many decorations. This also applies to color, whether it’s too much orange or too much black.”
Noel Gatts, principal designer at Beam & Bloom, told Newsweek that another effective way to spook up your house is to switch your everyday art with “haunted frames.”
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1. Horror Spooky Portraits
To add a spooky yet sophisticated touch to your house, you could switch your art, and put up some horror images instead of your usual portraits and fruit basket pictures. You can print the images yourself, making this super quick and inexpensive!
2. Black Roses
Flowers and roses always add a classy touch to your space, so why not go with a beautiful black rose bouquet to spruce up your evil decor? Some black paint spray and some roses are all you need.
3. Bat Decorations
Always portrayed as evil creatures, bats can’t be missing from any good Halloween decor, and attaching mini bats to your doors, windows or walls will make your house look threatening and dark.
Seema Bansal, co-founder of Venus et Fleur told Newsweek that she likes to keep her Halloween decor relaxed and fall festive.
“Candles are an absolute must of mine,” she said. “Halloween is a great excuse to burn tons of candles throughout your space, it just makes it so cozy!”
“I also like distributing glass canisters filled with my favorite candy around my home. I’m a way bigger fan of treats rather than tricks.”
To DIY these at home, all you need is paper and scissors. And if you want to color them in, some coloring pens!
4. Gothic Candleholders
You can turn your candleholders into spooky Halloween decor. Get some paper, stencil the shape of a bat, witch, skull or anything else Halloween-related, cut it out with scissors, and tape it to your candleholder.
5. Skull Flowerpot
What’s scarier than skulls? All you need is paper, pens and scissors, Stencil your skull, cut it out and stick it on one of your flower pots! This skull plantpot will give your delicate lilies an eerie look, making even your plants look scary.
Perhaps the most important aspect to consider when spooking up your house is the color palette, according to Gatts, which can make a real difference if chosen correctly.
6. Autumn Wreath
Filled with autumn leaves and tiny pumpkins, an autumn wreath is a great way to add color and spookiness to your house without going over-the-top. And, you might as well just keep it up until Thanksgiving! You can make this at home by just grabbing some orange and red leaves and maybe some pine cones.
7. Garden Decorations
If you’re one of those lucky people with a garden, we’ve got some tips for you too. Gardening advice blog Gardeningetc suggests keeping it simple yet fun with lawn ornaments, and using loads of pumpkins, which after all are one of the main symbols of Halloween. If you’re lucky enough, some stores will still have some pumpkins.
8. Garden Tombstones
You can DIY a tombstone at home too. You just need paper, coloring pens and something to stick your drawing on to.
Mistakes To Avoid When Decorating For Halloween
Bellone says her biggest advice is to stay away from popular decorations that everybody uses, which she says are not always cheaper or more affordable, and focus instead on pieces that you can incorporate into your home decor.
“Our best advice would be to choose items and decorations you absolutely love and imagine using [them] every year until they become heirlooms. That way, you can’t go wrong with your Halloween decor.”
According to Bansal a common mistake people make when choosing decorations is buying single-use decor and trendy decor based on recent movies and TV shows.
“These decorations seem great in the moment but their use is limited, not to mention it doesn’t always align with the aesthetic of the space,” she said.
Another common mistake is buying polyester faux spider webs, which according to Bansal can really diminish a festive Halloween display.
“They get messy, stuck on fun Halloween costumes, and collect dust and debris. Not to mention they are usually only a one-time use item which just ends up in the trash.”
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