Pumpkin Spice Patch: Very Un-scary
Bored of orange and black and more into a boo-tiful harvest than an abundance of blood? Add some pizzazz to your pumpkin patch by putting down the carving knife and picking up the craft supplies.
Treat to Make It Extra Sweet: If you’re using real, uncarved pumpkins in your display, give them a quick polish with floor wax before setting them out — not only will they shine, they’ll stay fresh for up to four weeks.
Dr. Frankenstein’s Apothecary: A Fun Fright
If dark humor and creativity appeal to you more than guts and gore, experiment with your own front porch apothecary. Mix up some silly, spirited fun with special ingredients to create a catalyst for an intriguing evening.
Treat to Make It Extra Sweet: Add a sensory element of silly scariness to your evening with a thrilling and chilling touch table. Fill black boxes with things like gelatin for Frankenstein’s heart, raisins for witch warts, and cold, mushy pasta for zombie brains, and invite guests to blindly guess which horror lies inside through touch alone.
Ghoulish Graveyard: Bone-Chilling Scene
If you like a good thrill and tend to get dark with your Halloween decorating, the night sky is the limit. Bring fun and fear together with a spirited cemetery people will be dying to see.
Boo-It-Yourself: Make your cemetery supernatural with ghastly ghosts. Dip long strips of cheesecloth into a bowl of liquid starch or fabric stiffener before draping it over a 2-liter bottle, or similar form depending on desired size, with a Styrofoam ball on top. Allow to dry overnight before peeling the scared-stiff specter off of the form and into your graveyard. Treat to Make It Extra Sweet: Spray-paint cardboard toilet paper rolls black, cut eye shapes into them, insert a glow stick, and stash creepy peepers around your yard for an affordable, evil touch.
Murder Mystery Mansion: A Bloody Nightmare
Some people like to help put the horror in Halloween by taking things to the extreme. Add terror to your typical haunted house by transforming your back porch into a murder mystery mansion for a dinner party of darkness.
Treat to Make It Extra Sweet: Make the main course a head served on a silver platter. Create a creepy charcuterie display by covering a Styrofoam skull in a cap of saran wrap before adding a variety of thinly sliced meats pierced with toothpicks to make your cold cuts chilling. Whatever your level of scare, think outside of the Jack o’ Lantern and try bringing these new tricks and treats to your Halloween style this year. Whether you’re looking for a family-friendly night of fun, or a way to bring nightmares to life, Halloween is a great time to make your decor both frightful and delightful. Ashley McCann is a blogger who made the list of “100 Women Bloggers You Should Read,” published by Ignite Social Media. Ashley writes on Halloween yard decoration and other topics for The Home Depot. For a wide variety of indoor and outdoor Halloween decor, including styles discussed by Ashley, you can visit Home Depot’s website.
