Haunt Up Your Home with These Easy Halloween DIY Decorations

Spooky season is upon us, allowing everyone to get creative and design festive settings for their home. You do not have to spend a lot of money to turn heads. We have found some practical ways to decorate your home for Halloween using everyday items. 

Below are some DIY tricks that will surely be a treat for all your neighbors.

DIY Halloween Front Yard Ideas

When trick-or-treat season is in full effect, you need some creative Halloween yard ideas to bring the scares. You do not need to go out and buy a 12-foot skeleton to make a statement. With the right materials, you can create a frightening front yard scene for everyone to enjoy.

Make Realistic Tombstones from Foam

With just some paint and foam, you can create a cemetery full of gags to bring joy to the neighborhood. This craft from HGTV shows you how.

All you will need for this Halloween yard prop is:

• Floral styrofoam
• Black spray paint
• Acrylic paint
• Permanent marker
• A sharp knife

Since you will be using spray paint, make sure you work on this craft in a well-ventilated area.

1. Cut the foam into a tombstone shape and carve out your message into the front of the foam. Try carving out some fun phrases like, “Here Lies Dee Capitated.”
2. Once you have the message carved out, color in the etchings with the permanent marker.
3. Spray the foam with black spray paint to give it a dark grey hue.
4. Finally, apply a very thin layer of grey acrylic paint over the foam, making sure to avoid getting paint in the carved message. Wait for it to dry and repeat the acrylic paint process two more times to give it astone-like look!

A Ghost Windsock That is a Breeze

Here is an effective – yet simple – Halloween decoration perfect for all ages. To create this ghost windsock, all you will need is:

• A toilet paper roll or paper cup
• White paint
• White tissue paper
• Glue
• Scissors
• A black marker
• Yarn
• A hole puncher

This is an easy Halloween DIY decoration you can do with children. How you paint your ghost's face is up to you, so make sure you get into the creative “spirit!”

1. Start by painting the toilet paper roll or cup with white paint.
2. Punch two holes on the top of the roll on either side.
3. Run the yarn through the holes and tie it at the top.
4. Use the black marker to paint a ghastly face on the roll.
5. Finally, cut the tissue paper into long strips and glue them onto the bottom of the roll.

You can hang several of these in trees, creating a ghostly get-together for your neighbors to enjoy.

DIY Halloween Theme Decorations for Inside the Home

If you are big on hosting Halloween parties, your interior needs to reflect the same spooky scene as you have outdoors. These Halloween indoor décor projects will bring more haunt to your home décor.

Make Fake Fire in Your Window

With a few household materials, you can create an eerie flame effect in your windows that will have passersby staring in awe. To do this, you will need:

• Light weight bedsheets
• An industrial box fan
• Some colored LED lights (preferably green, blue or purple)
• Something to weigh the sheet down, like a rod or bricks

This effect is so realistic that they use it in several popular theme parks. For this reason, you may want to steer clear of yellow or red lights, which create a very convincing fire scene that may worry your neighbors. By sticking to cooler colors, like blue, green or purple, you can create a ghostly fire that will not be mistaken for the real thing.

1. Hang some thin bedsheets over your window. Lighter colors like white or silver work best to reflect the light. Also, sheets with a more reflective surface like satin or sateen help sell the effect more.
2. Next, place the box fan underneath the sheet and anchor the sheet down. Try to get the fan to blow the sheets back and forth. Placing another fan a few feet behind the sheet can get it to move more.
3. Place your lights just underneath the front side of your sheet, so the light can reflect outside the window. When you turn on the fan(s), you should be able to see a rolling flame billowing out your window.

This video from Wicked Makers includes a great step-by-step process for achieving this effect.

Show Off Spooky Visitors for All To See

This is a very easy effect to create at Halloween home that will create a spooky apparition in your window that the whole neighborhood can visit. You do not need to spend too much to achieve this effect, but if you have a digital projector, your window can host a whole show for trick-or-treaters.

For this, you will need:

• An opaque shower liner
• A Halloween projector

Seasonal projectors have grown in popularity over the last few years, you can get some inexpensive ones at places like Target or if you have a digital projector, you can get more elaborate scenes like the one sold by AtmosFX.

1. Hang a shower liner from a curtain rod right behind your window. You want to use a liner that allows light to pass through it, one that is not completely clear but not too thick that it blocks out the light. A sheer curtain or bed sheet can also work. Make sure the liner hangs flat so as not to warp the projection.
2. Shine your projector behind the liner and move it forward or back to get the right size/focus.

A Bubbling DIY Halloween Witch Decoration

This bubbling cauldron trick is free of toil or trouble. With a few inexpensive items, you can craft homemade Halloween decoration that makes for a great witchy centerpiece.

For this project, you will need:

• Iridescent Christmas balls
• Purple fairy lights
• A plastic cauldron
• A small box or crumpled newspaper

You can get most of these supplies on Amazon. You can also find inexpensive plastic cauldrons sold there or at most craft stores.

1. Glue the Christmas balls together, so they begin to resemble bubbles.
2. Place a box or crumpled newspaper into the cauldron to prop the bubbles up. Place the bubbles on top of the box.
3. Line the inside of the cauldron with fairy lights.

When you plug in the fairy lights, they will give the illusion of a bubbling cauldron with a haunting glow!

Looking for a spacious new home for Halloween? Explore Perry Homes’ gallery of homes for your perfect location to create holiday memories for years to come.