Halloween Decorating Ideas
Halloween Decorating & Party Theme Ideas
Tap into the past, present and future unexplained mysteries of the universe and enter the world of the supernatural, if you dare.
For inspiration, we’ve compiled a list of paranormal party themes for unearthly creatures, spirits and sorcery, along with a few decorating ideas to get you started.
Silly-Monster Bash: Featuring adorable, google-eyed monsters, not the scary kind.
Create whimsical & colorful little creatures by adding eyes, teeth, hair, horns and/or claws to just about anything.
Create whimsical & colorful little creatures by adding eyes, teeth, hair, horns and/or claws to just about anything.
- Decorate chairs, balloons, plastic eggs, planters, pitchers, tables, cups, glass containers
- Add monster footprints with chalk on asphalt and/or with a stencil and flour, white paint or glow-in-the-dark paint on the lawn
- Create monsters with food: cookies, finger sandwiches, cupcakes, oranges, pumpkins, apples, & lollipops
Gothic Monster Mash: An old-school, scary monster soiree featuring vampires, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, mummies, and werewolves.
- Decorate the scene as:
- Dracula’s castle
- Frankenstein’s laboratory
- A haunted house
- Graveyard with a full moon
- Make castle walls from dyed white sheets, a stone-pattern stencil and paint
- Serve “swamp water” in a bowl set inside a larger bowl with dry ice
- Rim glasses with black sugar
- Drip red wax over white candles
- Decorate with crows, skulls, pitchers of “blood” and vials of poison, coffins, dripping candles in a candelabrum or wine bottles, bats, chains, bloody gauze
- Fill glass jars of heads, brains & body parts with green glow sticks
- Table of protection: silver crosses, wooden stakes, silver bullets, garlic necklaces, clubs, holy water
- Serve red velvet cake, red m&ms, in black containers
- Serve drinks of wolfs bane, bloody Mary’s
- Apply dripping blood and handprint removable decals
- Make a sign for the bar: “The Slaughtered Lamb"
- Add instant atmosphere with a fog machine
Saints & Sinners: Aka Naughty & Nice, Sweet & Sinister, create parallel experiences of heaven and hell and Invite your guests to dress as good or evil.
HEAVEN
- Decorate in white with gold accents
- Cover furniture in white and walls in white tulle; tent the ceiling in white fabric
- Use cotton batting to make fluffy clouds
- Trim furniture and accessories with white feather boas and/or ostrich feathers
- Accent with metallic gold, a harp, and white mini lights
- Serve white food and angel’s food cake
HELL
- Decorate in red and black
- Use candles, red bulbs, and red mini-lights
- Cover furniture in red; tent the ceiling in black
- Use red cellophane or foil on the walls, red & black ostrich feathers as centerpieces
- Accent with skulls, scythes and hanging pitchforks and chains
- Create fake flames with red/orange/yellow tissue paper and/or flickering lights
- Serve red & spicy food and deviled eggs
BOTH
- Offer guests the choice of horns or halos when they arrive
- Use a fog machine for both areas
Zombie Apocalypse: Replicate the panicked collapse of civilized society with a night of the walking dead, featuring a disturbing scene of death, dismemberment and mutilation.
- Decorate with representations of death: graveyards, coffins, spiders, skulls, dead trees
- Add intact, severed, decomposing & mutant body parts
- Include ears, brains, hands, arms, scars, eyeballs, feet, fingers, hair
- Position arms outstretched & fingers reaching through boarded windows, doors & fireplace
- Add silhouettes of walking zombies
- Use green glow sticks for an eerie effect
- Post signs & caution tape:
- Beware
- Do Not Feed
- Infected:Keep Out
- Quarantine
- Don’t Hesitate, Decapitate
- A Night To Dismember
- Put dry ice in an outer bowl with inner punch bowl Freeze water in a latex glove for an ice hand for the punch
- Decorate with bloody gauze & handprints
- Make a zombie family portrait wall
- Hang blood stained sheets as a photo booth
- Make a food buffet with jeans and shirt laid out in human form
- Insert dishes into cut holes and at the head
- Add skeleton hands and feet
- Drip red wax on white tapers for bleeding candles
Ghosts & Ghouls: Invoke the spirits of ghosts, ghouls and phantoms for a haunting, soul-filled manifestation of merriment.
- Welcome guests with a graveyard of tombstones, hanging ghosts and blue glow sticks
- Place red and/or green glow sticks in toilet paper rolls with eyes cut out, to hide in bushes & discreet locations
HAUNT YOUR HOUSE
- Cover furniture with sheets
- Simulate boarded up windows
- Use gauze and cheesecloth as tattered curtains and on chairs to look worn
- Use barren, black curly twigs in vases
- Decorate with black plants, branches, flowers, wreaths, garlands, and foliage
- Add cobwebs, spiders, rats, skeletons, chains and bats
- Put black candles in a candelabrum and candle holders
- Rip cheesecloth and hang from the ceiling
- Hang ghostly candles by attaching flameless tea-lights to spray-painted paper towel tubes & hang with fishing line
- Make ghost luminaries by putting candles in canning jars painted white with ghost eyes & nose or wrap with white gauze with jiggly eyes
CONJURE GHOSTS
- Use a coat hanger and Styrofoam ball to shape cheesecloth into ghost, then spray with liquid starch leaving some areas dry for a flowing effect. When dry, remove ball & hanger, add eyes and mouth, then mount on a pole just above the ground
- Cover tissue paper bells or large white gourds with cheesecloth & add black felt eyes & mouth
- Draw and cut out ghostly figures on frosted window film and stick to a mirror or window
- Cover white mini-lights with ping pong balls, draw ghost eyes and noses, then glue cheesecloth onto each ball/ghost
- Draw ghost eyes and nose on milk jugs, insert a portion of a white mini light strand into the back of each one to create a row of ghosts along the walkway
- Cover foam wig mannequin heads with cheesecloth
- Make a gaggle of ghosts with white-washed wood blocks of varying heights, then paint eyes & nose in black
- Fill white plastic garbage bags with leaves or paper, then draw on eyes and mouth
- Dip strawberries in white chocolate candy coating, add mini chocolate chips for eyes & nose
Witches, Warlocks & Wizards: Summon the magic of witches, warlocks and wizards for a spell-binding good time.
- Use aged parchment paper for invitations
- Put striped socks and witch (old lady) shoes on the legs of a table or sticking out of the doormat
- Create a bubbling black cauldron with dry ice and green glow sticks inside; set the cauldron on 3 small skulls and place crumpled foil underneath with blinking orange mini lights threaded through the crumples
- Carve apples and/or potatoes to make shrunken heads
- Light area with pillar candles on stands & dripping tapers
- Fill glass apothecary jars with eyeballs, bat wings, shrunken heads (apples) & werewolf claws (slivered almonds)
- Print labels for glass jars and bottles of potions & poisons
- Decorate with barren branches and black foliage
- Hang witch and wizard hats, brooms, magic wands & staffs
- Serve witch’s finger breadsticks & wizard hat cupcakes
- Include a gold crescent moon & stars, bats, rats, crows, bones, skulls, & black cats
- Drape witch capes, wizard robes and/or warlock cloaks on the back of dining chairs
- Use a large old book for “Spells” and add an eye looking out the front
- Serve cocktails and/or hors d'oeuvres with eyeballs (hollowed out radishes with olives inside)
Harry Potter: Recreate the magic and adventure of Harry Potter’s life at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
- Make invitations that look like tickets on Hogwarts’ Express
- Attach flameless tea-lights inside spray-painted paper towel rolls & hang with fishing line; drip wax or hot glue down the sides for effect
- Create flying letters out of the fireplace by hanging with fishing line
- Decorate with snowy owls and pillar candles on pedestals
- Serve mandrake cupcakes, plastic babies with plant tops hot-glued to the head, inserted in chocolate cupcakes, served in terra-cotta flower pots
- Make the front door all bricks
- Dip, frost & decorate upside down ice cream cones to make wizard hats
- Print banners for each house at Hogwarts on parchment paper or affix to house-color fabric/flags
- Use coat hangers and a Styrofoam ball to shape cheesecloth dyed black into a Dementor then spray with liquid starch, leaving some areas dry for a flowing effect. Hang or mount on a pole just above the ground.
- Make small tree branch wands
- Decorate with potion bottles of various shapes, colored liquids and labels
- Print Hogwarts wizard & magic book covers for a stack of books
- Suspend a golden snitch (discreetly); spray paint a wiffle ball gold and thread white tulle through for wings
- Serve butterbeer
- Greet guests with a wood directional sign
- Stack vintage-style suitcases