How to Decorate for Halloween Cheaply

If you want to join in on the festivity of Halloween but you need to celebrate on a tight budget, follow these tips on how to decorate for Halloween cheaply.  With the right tricks, you can have a fabulously spooky house AND a wallet full of cash this Halloween.

Invite friends and family over to admire your thrifty decorations and ask them to bring something for a Halloween pot-luck. After all, even those afraid of their kitchens can bring drinks or desserts. If you want to provide something for your guests, in addition to the beautiful setting, make inexpensive party favors. Decorate paper bags and fill with bulk candy or make caramel apples.

Here are some tips for how to decorate for Halloween cheaply:

Set the Mood

Dim the lights or place long white sheets over the lamp shades. Give your home the look of an abandoned house by draping the furniture in white sheets too. Cover everything with fake cobwebs, including draping over framed artwork. Scatter leaves, twigs and dried flowers across the tables.  You can even throw in some fake spiders for fun. Light black pillar candles scattered around your home.

Make the Night Glow

Create pumpkin luminaries by cutting the tops off 2-liter bottles, painting orange and drawing jack-o-lantern faces. Make ghost luminaries with small votives, white spray paint and a black marker to draw the ghost face.  For a great craft for indoors or outdoors, use large tin cans to create luminaries. Paint a ghost or jack-o-lantern face on the tin can. You can even paint the word “Boo!” Fill with water and freeze. Once frozen, use a hammer and nail to punch an outline of dots around your design. The ice will keep you from bending the can while hammering. When you are done, let the ice melt and dry the can. Place a candle inside and watch the light shine through the holes.

Recycle Food Containers

Just like in the craft above, you can do many crafts with empty food containers. Use empty coffee cans or oatmeal containers to make pumpkins, witches, ghosts or Frankenstein. Wrap yarn around the containers to make a solid color, paint or decoupage the containers with tissue paper. Add faces with black felt, craft foam or painted shapes cut from brown paper grocery bags. For example, you could wrap a container with orange yarn and add a jack-o-lantern face with black craft foam.

Raid Your Closet

Do you have a spare black boa lying around? Wrap a black boa around a foam ring to create a Halloween wreath. You can also use hanger bent into the shape of a wreath or a cardboard circle, anything circular for the base of the boa. Add eyeballs made from foam balls or ghosts cut from white craft foam or cardstock.  For another idea, cut the boa into 4 equal lengths to become the legs of a spider. Glue the middle of each length to the bottom of the spider body, made from a foam ball or a black balloon. Add wiggle eyes and teeth.

Buy a Big Roll of Cheesecloth

You can make ghosts and spider webs with white cheesecloth and bats by painting the cheesecloth black. Fabric stiffener helps to mold the cheesecloth into shapes. Use balloons to make the ghost form.  Use water bottles to make the bat form. For a spooky twist, insert a green glow stick into the balloon before inflating. Draw a face on the balloon with black marker. Drape the white cheesecloth over the balloon and hang. You have a glowing ghost!