With the spooky season just around the corner, it’s time to dress up our homes to prepare for October 31st. When decorating your home for Halloween, you don’t have to use traditionally scary monsters, bugs, or memorabilia to make a truly frightening statement. Some of the best DIY creations are subtle, a little kitschy, unexpected, or add a dash of mystery.
Photo by cottonbro
Halloween Apothecary
An apothecary is an ancient medicine dispensary that uses natural ingredients in its recipes. If you have a bookshelf, cabinet, or display case in your home, fill it up with the following:
Head in a Jar
To make ahead in a jar realistic, use a mask you can find in any Halloween store or a printed-out photo of someone with their eyes closed. Glue a wig or hairpiece on the top of the head to stimulate hair movement. Then, fill the jar up with water and add yellow or green food colouring.
Dead or Dying Flowers
Either purchase a Halloween flower arrangement from an online shop or buy fake flowers that already look dead. However, natural dried flowers look the best, as good-quality plastic blooms are often very expensive. Plus, real flowers offer a wide range of health benefits when they’re alive and when smelled, can increase focus, improve memory, and put you in a better mood.
Potion Bottles
Label a bunch of bottles with frightening artifacts and medicines by purchasing glass or frosted containers that are easily customizable. Many Halloween shops will have decorative bottles with ingredients like eyeballs, poison, spiders, or blood. However, if you want to go the extra mile, add twine around the bottle spouts, preserved ingredients inside, and faded labels on its face.
Spider Webs
The best spider webs are found in stores, but most people misapply them. Even the cheapest brands can look exceptional if you fold and stretch them like so:
- Start with standard stretch webbing you can find at any Halloween store.
- Pull it tight and very thin. Don’t be worried about overstretching for now.
- Once it looks decent but not exceptional, spray 3M 90 through the webbing. *
* 3M 90 is difficult to clean, so do this outside. Stay away from open flames.
- Now the webbing should look more visible, small, and tacky.
- Start sculpting the webs around your prop, creating more holes in the web.
- For more visible webs, brush it with grey or white spray paint.
3M 90 currently costs $10-$15 a can at most hardware stores and comes in 24 Fl.
Spooky Silhouettes
Cut out a silhouette of a person, preferably someone holding a knife or looking scared, and tape them on your window inside. Use black construction paper or any material that light can’t pass through for the best effect. Backlight your windows with an orange spotlight if you want your silhouettes to be especially noticeable, or use blue and purple for a more subtle scare.
Hanging Candles
While not incredibly spooky by itself, floating candles can add some mystery to your Halloween decor. Before hanging up your candles, tape black or star-speckled construction paper on your ceiling to add to the floating illusion. Then, use LED flickering candles and string them up on fishing wire to not cast a shadow. Never use real candles, or you’ll create a fire hazard.
Budget Bodies
Take a bunch of trash bags and put enough items inside to create the silhouette of a body. Tie your trash bags with twine until it looks like the fake person inside won’t be able to escape. To make this prop extra scary, throw a bit of fake blood around the feet and torso. If your decorations are too large to fit inside, hang them off of a tree in your front or backyard.
Jessica Alexander
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