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.