Halloween is fast approaching and it’s time to get your home ready for the festivities. But before you start splashing out on plastic decorations and themed partyware, here are some ideas to help you get the look for less – and some party decor hacks that can be achieved at the last-minute with items you already own…
1. Pumpkin-packed porch
If you’ve seen houses in your neighbourhood decorated with big plastic skeletons and billowing ghosts, you might want to join in the fun with your own exterior decor. However, those outdoor accessories can cost a lot from your local garden centre, so let’s find a way to cut the costs.
The first tip I’d like to share is using your Christmas fairy lights to illuminate your porch or around the front door. This is especially effective if you have red berry lights, as these look blood-red in the context of Halloween.
Bright cool white lights give off a ghostly glow, while warm white twinkle lights help to create an autumnal ambience, reflecting off the orange pumpkins around your porch. I’ve seen really low-cost pumpkins in the supermarkets this year and I even got a munchkin gourd for just 39p from the veg section.
So, stock up on pumpkins but don’t carve them – instead you can stick on spooky slogans, scary shapes or googly eyes like I do without damaging the edible flesh inside. That way you can still use the pumpkins to make soups, pies and casseroles over the coming weeks and nothing goes to waste = basically free decorations.
2. Horrifying hallway
When you’re opening the door to trick-or-treaters, you probably want your hallway to look the part. Or if you’re welcoming in guests to your spooky party, it’s the first place they’ll see so make sure it sets the scene.
Forget the plastic vampires and witches on broomsticks hanging from the ceiling and the faux cob-webs stretched across the doorways (by the way, you should never put this cob-web material outside, because birds and animals can get tangled in it) and instead, opt for an easy and low-cost way to do decorate – with balloons.
Shopping online with a bulk balloon supplier lets you buy balloons in packs of 50 (or more!) so you can make a big impact within the space for a low cost. Choose orange and black balloons and hang them from the staircase bannister and the door frames. Don’t forget to decorate the hallway mirror, as the reflection doubles the amount of visible balloons!
You can also add just a handful of balloons printed with jack-o-lantern faces or skulls – just a few gives the impression that the whole decor is themed, when really it’s just a few carefully placed balloons alongside the basic budget-friendly ones.
Plus, I’ve previously shared a very quick and easy video to show you how to make a hanging bat garland using paper, so you can get the kids involved in a Halloween craft during the school holidays and use the bats to decorate your hallway, too.
3. Petrifying place settings
If you’re hosting a Halloween party where food is served, there’s no need to go overboard with themed crockery and decorations. My favourite tip for creating a terrifying tablescape is to use what you already have and add a couple of items…
So pull out the white tablecloth, or use a coloured bed sheet if you prefer, and dress it with a ‘runner’ made from an off-cut of wallpaper, like I did for my Gatsby-themed party. You can even get small samples of wallpapers from DIY stores that you can cut into placemats so keep an eye out for dark-coloured patterns.
Layer up plain white crockery then just add black napkins to make the table look more scary. It’ll totally transform the place settings and will only cost a pound or two. Again, you could splash out on a tiny micro gourd for each place setting; at less than 50p each, it’s not going to break the bank and will look so on-theme.
Or you can make gingerbread men that are decorated as skeletons and add one of these cookies to each place setting as a favour (or as dessert!). Here’s my recipe for chocolate gingerbread skeleton biscuits – so yummy, and a handy way to give the table a theme without any other Halloween accessories!
4. Scary shadowy lighting
My final hack for creating a Halloween-ready decor is to simply turn off the lights! But, of course, you need to still get around your home so investigate other ways that you can create low-lighting without burning candles (which you can do but can’t leave them unattended).
Lamps are your friends here, along with coloured lighting options like Lava Lamps and neon signs. Also, if you have smart bulbs in your home, you can dim the lights to almost nothing, to give you that spooky glow around the house.
I have some colour-changing smart bulbs in a couple of my lamps so I’m able to change the colour to orange or purple to create a themed scene. You can even program the lights to rotate through a variety of colours, which gives the lights disco-style pulsing when the Halloween party gets going.
By the way, I’ve previously shared an easy sewing tutorial to help you turn a spooky t-shirt into a Halloween cushion, so be sure to have a look at that too. Pair it with your existing autumnal-themed or orange cushions to give the sofa a scary makeover.
I hope these hacks have given you some inspiration for hosting a Halloween gathering if you’re on a budget. Please also share your own tips for low-cost decorations and party ideas in the comments below – I’d love to hear your ideas.
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