Unmasking the Magic: Halloween – Where Spooky Meets Sweet!

Halloween is very much a family time of the year. Everyone gets to be that little bit weird and scary but it’s perfectly acceptable. If it’s anything like my family, this is pretty much the same for most of the year!

As with any year, we love Halloween and it’s a great excuse to not only dress up and be scary in our Halloween Costumes but to also make the house look amazing! We get all of our Halloween décors out from storage and we really go overboard. You don’t have to go out every year and buy new Halloween decorations and spend hundreds of pounds on new stuff. If you can, recycle and re-use. After all, that’s the way the world is going at the moment.

We have given some ideas for decorating your bedroom for Halloween, that article can be read here – Decorating your bedroom for Halloween. So this time we thought we would give you some idea about decorating your living room. Somewhere where the family spend time together so why not make it a family event to get the decorating done.

There are many ways of doing this and no, we are not going to suggest you paint your walls orange and your ceiling black. (If you want to then you are more than welcome to) It’s more about the subtle small things again that can really change a room dramatically. So let’s start getting into some of our personal suggestions.

1, The coffee table is a great place to start. This would normally be in the centre of the room so somewhere very focal and visual as soon as you enter the room. Try draping a creepy cloth over the coffee table. This will make it look like it’s a witch’s working table. Do you have any small bottles? Fill them up with water and use water colourings to make them green, black and orange, like it was a selection of witches potions waiting to be brewed. Maybe put these on a tray with some small fake insects or body parts to make it look a bit more authentic. We have, on quite a few occasions purchased some children’s sweets, something like the wriggly works and put them inside the glass bottles. Makes it look like there are some creatures waiting to be brewed!

Be adventurous with this. The bottles with different coloured water and sweets inside are a great and simple decoration to make. They can look absolutely fantastic. Maybe get quite a few together and put them along a bookshelf?

2, Bookshelves, as above, are a great place for putting Halloween decorations. These are usually in a great view of everyone as they enter the room. Also, being at eye level for most, they can really get your attention. Try getting some fake cobwebs (Or if you are lazy like us, don’t dust for a few weeks!) and put some of these over the books and under the shelves? Maybe put some large fake spiders with them.

Hanging bats from the edges of the shelves is another great option that we try to do. Again, put together with some fake cobwebs and foliage can really make it look good.

3, Lighting is, as always, a great and easy effect to play with. It’s so easy now to go out and get a colour changing LED bulb. Pop 1 of these in a lamp and set the colour to orange and have a dull glow in the corner. This can really change the atmosphere in the room very quickly. If you have a hunt around on the internet you can find many great LED bulbs that have different features. We managed to find 1 that will randomly flash to simulate lightning. This gives an amazing feature but can catch you out at times and actually scare you a bit when you are not expecting it.

If you are able to get hold of some small battery-powered LED lights then these can be great to use too. Scrunch them up and put them in a bowl with some fake insects to make a great sideboard decoration. How about putting some at the back of your bookcase to give a subtle inner glow behind your hanging bats and cobwebs.

Be adventurous with this as it really can change the feel of a room.

4, General decorations around the room can let you know that it really is Halloween season. From small pumpkins sat on the shelf to your countdown calendar on the mantelpiece that needs changing every day. Small things like this are great and fun as well, especially for the kids. Put some of this smaller decoration on your window sill so that people walking by your house can see that you are extremely excited about Halloween.

5, our last tip for this article is going to be around hanging decorations. These really can be fun but some will take up a lot of room if you are not careful. One of the classics is the doorway ribbons. They simply hang in your doorway and every time you enter or leave the room you have to walk through them. Some are just coloured sparkly ribbons but shop around and you can get hanging spiders or small creepy ghosts that hang down.

The usual classic wall hanging decorations are things like Bats, Skeletons, witches, ghosts and pumpkins. These are great and can be hung anywhere that has space. If you are feeling a bit adventurous, have a look at the few items below. These are great, but scary so use them cautiously!

Well, we hope that we have given you some great and simple ideas for decorating your living room. These are all cheap and easy ideas to do and won’t break the bank. As always, have fun and enjoy the Halloween celebrations.

Let’s face it, everyone who likes Halloween wants to enjoy it and decorate their houses or rooms accordingly. Are you planning a Halloween sleepover for your children? If so, then decorating their bedroom is a top priority. We have put together some great ideas to hopefully help you make the most of this without really changing things too much!

Here are some good ideas and tips for making a normal bedroom into a Halloween paradise.

The main area is lighting. This instantly changes the look and feel of a room and the object in it. There are several ways that you can change the lighting in a room. The first option is to get a different colour lightbulb for the main light in the room. This could be an orange or maybe a pink or purple glow light. Or maybe see if you can get a multicolour changing light where you can select the colour you want. This allows for different atmospheres to be created.

Do you have any fairy lights? These are great and most kids love them for some reason. If you can get these in some great colours to then even better. These can be spread out and clipped across the top of the bed or some shelving. Do you have some large glass bowls? Fairy lights look amazing put inside a large fishbowl.

Neon lights are another option. These can be purchased in Halloween shapes, i.e., a bat or a pumpkin possibly and mounted on the wall to give the room a spooky neon glow?

Another idea is to create a Ghost Light that shines around the room. There are 2 ways of doing this using a standard desk lamp. The first way is to remove the lampshade and make 1 of your own that you cut out the ghostly shapes. This way the shapes are projected around the room as the light shines through. The other way is to buy a plastic or glass ball. On here use a marker pen and draw some ghostly shapes. Once dry, place the ball on top of the lamp and let the light shine through. This will project your ghostly shapes around the room and make your normal bedroom spooky and unique.

Once you have the lighting sorted, it’s time to start looking at all the other areas. One of the easiest, and cheapest decorations you can do is with a Creepy Cloth. These can be picked up very cheap from most Halloween stores and make a great addition to your décor. These can be wrapped around the headboard of your bed, especially if you have a tubular design as they can look like cobwebs! They are also great for draping over other furniture to give that old spooky style décor.

Next are some more exciting bits and pieces. How about adding some pillows and blankets in a Halloween these to really make your bedroom pop! You can get some great Halloween pillows, some with Ghosts, some with pumpkins, some with just writing like ‘BOO’ on them! Same with the blankets or duvet covers. You can get some amazing Halloween themed soft furnishings.

Feeling crafty?? Why not go to your local fabric shop and get some Halloween material and make your own blankets and cushion covers. This way you can add them to what you already have and simply remove them when, and if you want Halloween to be over?

Signs are another great way to decorate your bedroom. You can get some brightly decorated signs with wording or pictures too. Again, if you are feeling adventurous then why not make your own? There are loads of art and craft shops that will sell Halloween theme crafty stickers or wooden ornaments that you could make your signs from? I have taken some of my current picture frames on my wall and redecorated these. But, instead of doing the front, I have made the back into a separate Halloween picture so all I have to do is simply turn the picture around and I’m ready for Halloween! So simple to do but really great effects.

Well, we are going to leave it there for this article. Hopefully, we have given you some ideas on what you can do to decorate your bedroom. As always there are always loads more ideas that can be done. Keep reading through our articles and I’m sure you will get some great inspiration!

Every year we start to get excited around this time with the thought of how we are going to be decorating our homes for the Halloween celebrations. You start to wonder what you have stored away from last year and whether it will fit with your plans for this year? Are you going to have to go out and spend lots of money on buying new decorations? Maybe you will choose to make a lot of your decorations? Before you do anything, we have put together a top 10 list of things that we think you should do before you start your decorating, but we will get to those shortly.

Halloween is a very exciting time and especially for the young children in our area. We always make sure that we put on a special Halloween display so that everyone who comes around will remember us and talk about us. Luckily we are in a position where we have the time and money to do this differently every year but not everyone is the same. You can also do some amazing things on a budget, you just need to be a bit savvier with your purchases. Don’t be impulsive. Make sure that you have a theme or an idea of what you want to achieve otherwise you may end up wasting money on items that simply can’t be used or that will look stupid with the other bits you have,

A planned decorated garden should be your goal. Something that has a deliberate need for Halloween décor that will really WOW the people walking by. Maybe you will be looking for that 1 amazing item to be the focal point of your decorations? If this is the case then focus on this and then buy smaller items to compliment it. Don’t overdo it and have multiple theses on the go at any one time.

Hmmm so I guess we had better get on with the top 5 tips for Halloween décor now

1, Have you got yourself a theme or style that you are happy with?

This is one of the most important steps. Without a halloween party theme, you will potentially be buying lots of bits and pieces that don’t really go together. If you focus all of your Halloween decors around a given theme then you will be surprised how little you can get away with spending. As an example, if you go with a graveyard theme then you will need to either buy or make some gravestones. You may want to get some skeletons to hang up, or if you are adventurous maybe get some soil, or well-disgused pots and have the skeletons coming out of the ground a bit? Maybe you want a spooky house theme? This might be good with lots of hanging spiders and old spooky signs telling people to stay away? Having a theme lets you focus on lots of different options but doesn’t allow you to just buy anything that you see.

2, How much do you already own that you could use?

People don’t realise how much Halloween décor they accumulate over the years. I know our collection grows every year with more and more items. Once you have your theme sorted, double-check what you already have that could be used. Don’t forget to check the items that you don’t think will fit with your given theme. You never know, with a lick of paint or some small accessories, a witches cauldron could suddenly become a storage pot for old bones in your graveyard theme.

3, Where are we going to display our theme?

Hmmm, this can be trickier than you think. Everyone immediately thinks about the front garden, and to be honest this is usually the best place. But, have a think about what else is around at the front of your house? Do you have a balcony that you could set up a theme on, or hang things from? Do you have a porch that you could use some scary lighting on? Could you put a projector onto the front of your house so you can be seen from further away?
One of our favourite things to do is to use 1 of our cars as a prop. We have a large scary Freddy Kruger costume from many years ago. For the past few years, we have put the costume over a large teddy bear so that it sits upright and put it in the driver seat of the car. We then put a remote-controlled torch into the car too. When people come to the house they walk straight past the car. While they are looking at the decorations, and of course helping themselves to sweets, we turn on the torch and this huge scary Freddy Kruger face suddenly appears at the car window. It has been amazing to see the children, and adults jump with fright as they turn to walk away! Definitely worth trying some small hidden surprises like this!

4, Can my decorations be used for several years?

Well, this is down to what decorations you buy and whether you want to keep them? Some decorations are really only meant for 1 use. Having paper Halloween strings up can mean that if they get wet or ripped, you are likely to put them in the bin. Some of the shimmering curtains that you can get just never fold back up properly. A lot of this is a personal choice. If you are going to be enjoying Halloween year after year then for your main props I would suggest you try and keep as many as possible. With the smaller decorations, it may be worth disposing of these after Halloween. Although it is great to re-use them, you can just end up with boxes of Halloween decorations that you will never use again.

5, Can I use the decoration away from Halloween?

I bet everyone at some point have seen an amazing Halloween decoration that’s big and bulky and thought, ‘I must have that!’. You use it for Halloween and then worry about where it’s going to go. If it’s not a decoration that you can use all year round and that you are happy to have in your living room then your first consideration before getting it is ‘Where can I store it?’. If you have the space, then great, get it and enjoy it. If you don’t have a storage box that it will fit in then maybe it’s worth reconsidering.

Well, that’s our top 5 tips for Halloween decoration for this article. We have plenty more articles available and more being uploaded all the time. Just remember, Halloween is fun. Don’t spoil the fun by either overspending or by regretting buying something that you either can’t use or you cant keep.