There are many ways to get your house ready for Halloween. Sometimes you want to do big dramatic decorations, sometimes simple seems best. Regardless of how ornate you want to be there are subtle things you can do to really make your house feel spooky.
One of my favorite spooky decoration is a series of haunted hanging pictures I created a few years ago. Your party guests will feel like the eyes follow them as they wander the halls looking for the guest bathroom…any they might just get so spooked they wind up having an accident in their favorite fairy tale costume.
To make your own, look at craft stores for spooky pictures or silhouettes. Buy googly eyes, red nail polish, black plastic spiders or spider web material and picture frames from the dollar store. Paint the frames black. Mount the pictures to a piece of cardboard big enough to slip inside the frame. Then embellish the pictures with fake blood, spiders, bugged out eyes, slime, glitter, snakes, rats or glow in the dark paint. Get creative. Maybe you want to smear the picture in dirt after painting glow in the dark eyes.
Whatever you do make sure that there are enough altered pictures to get your visitors attention. Sometimes I like to make spooky shadow boxes and put fake daggers or a pair of Victorian scissors inside with a bloody ribbon.
Emma Rae Curtis is a costume/dressing up/makeup & accessories expert. She mainly writes about Halloween but also about all things costume and dress-up related.
