A Guide To Decorating Your Home Ready For Halloween

Spooky Halloween Home Decorating Ideas

Halloween is a great time to have fun, be creative and get all the family involved. Whether you’re planning to be out trick or treating with the children or hosting a spooky party on the 31st October, we take a closer look at ideas on how to decorate your home and make it nice and spooky.

Create Spooky Mantelpiece Decorations

Head out to your local park and pick up some fallen branches, dry these out and paint them black and you’ve instantly got some eerie shapes to decorate the mantlepiece. A little black netting here and there will also look great. Throw in a few Halloween bats from Party365 and you’re almost there. The mantlepiece is a great place to decorate because it forms a strong focal point for the living room. But you don’t have to stop there if you want to really go to town and create the spookiest Halloween home on your street. Companies like Wayfair now produce a range of brilliant outdoor decorations designed to scare the neighbours.

Homemade Cobwebs and Spiders

It’s relatively easy to make your own cobwebs using cotton batting. This is material that is made up of fibres and which is used to fill cushions and duvets. You can get it online or at your local sewing store. All you need to do is pick off strands of the cotton batting and trail them across the area you are decorating.

When it comes to making spiders, all you really need is something to make the body shape and 8 legs. Whether you want small ones or large ones, there’s plenty of online guides get you started. Try these ideas out from Listonic. They even show you how to make a cheap but great looking spider out of a simple bin bag.

How to Carve Out a Pumpkin

Of course, what everyone really wants to do at Halloween is make traditional pumpkin lantern. This is not as difficult as you might think and there is a plentiful supply of pumpkins in the shops to allow you to experiment. Here’s our quick guide on how to carve a pumpkin:

·         First, choose a large pumpkin and cut off the crown using a sharp knife. You will want this to be removed whole as you are going to put it back after.

·         The next job is the messiest and that’s to get all the seeds and fibres out of the centre of the pumpkin.

·         Next remove a good portion of the flesh, making sure you leave just enough to keep the lantern solid. Don’t waste the flesh – You can use the insides of the pumpkin to create some lovely culinary dishes.

·         Draw a face on the front of the pumpkin. You can go for the traditional mix of triangles for the eyes and nose as well as jagged opening for the grin, or get creative – the choice is yours. Then simply cut out along your design flesh with a sharp knife.

·         Of course, if you are really artistic, you might like to try something like these more adventurous carvings simply download the pattern, trace it onto the pumpkin and get carving.

·         Once the pumpkin has been carved all you need to do is fix a tea light to the bottom of the inside of the pumpkin and light it up.

·         Finally, set the crown back on top of the pumpkin and you’re ready to celebrate Halloween in style.