Tag Archives: Halloween decorating

Getting Ready for Halloween – Adult Party

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15253063_SWould you like to be the perfect hosts for a Halloween party this year? Here are a few tips to help ensure that everyone has a spooky fun time.

Costume ideas: Consider asking for a specific theme for costumes. Often people will be particularly imaginative if you give them a defined starting point. For example, you could ask people to come as television or film characters. Or how about suggesting that everyone remember their childhood dreams and come as what they once wanted to be when they grew up?

Décor & lighting: Be creative with your Halloween theme. Candles set the stage, but consider glow sticks and battery-operated LED lights to tuck a glow where it is least expected. Store-bought spider webbing can add an edge to your buffet and lamps. It’s better to make a strong statement in one area such as the entryway or the buffet table than to scatter decorations over the entire house, although you might want to make the bathroom a bit spooky – how about one of those motion-activated skeletons ready to startle anyone who walks in?

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Food: Although you want to have some substantive choices, stick with a Halloween or at least an Autumn theme. A butternut squash soup provides a warm taste of the season, or how about pumpkin bread? Be sure to add a few seasonal touches such as the spider web design in sour cream in the photo to the right, Visit the food network’s website or google Halloween food for a host of Halloween-themed appetizers and desserts.

And finally, even though this party is for adults, be sure to include some bite-sized Halloween candy. After all, we are all still kids at heart.

Getting ready for Halloween – Decorating

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15317524_SHalloween is second only to Christmas for dollars spent on decorations. It’s fun to play with the holiday by decorating your home and yard. Here are a few ideas to bring Halloween into your home.

There are three directions to choose for your Halloween plans: classic, cute or scary. There are so many options for buying or making decorations that choosing one will help narrow down your decisions.

It’s easy to capture the classic look if you already have decorated your home for fall. You can add a few Halloween-themed items to take it that next step. For example, adding a witches hat and rustic broom in the photo above turns a classic fall arrangement into a nod to the end of October.

16024438_SCute is easy too. Grab a handy stuffed creature or two and add a few non-scary Halloween items such as uncarved pumpkins and Halloween candy. Nothing frightening here – this is a good choice when dealing with more timid little folks who may be overwhelmed by the season.

10776894_SScary is a great choice if you have teenagers in the home. The easiest way to handle this is to give them a budget and free rein. Visiting a local haunted house or two can help with inspiration. If you’re in charge, skeletons, spiders, snakes and dim lights can make your Halloween décor startling and spooky.

Warehouse, discount and dollar stores provide plenty of fuel for making your home fit the season, whichever direction you choose. For more ideas, search “Halloween decorations” on Pinterest. You’ll see a bevy of purchased and homemade ideas – all designed to please you, make you smile, or scare you to pieces.

Unique but Simple Halloween Decorating

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If you want to decorate the outside of your home for Halloween but would like to create something much more unusual than the choices available in stores, here are a couple of ideas to spark up the front of your home that rely on imagination and creativity rather than a lot of effort or dollars.

This first choice requires you to expand beyond the standard rounded pumpkin. Look for pumpkins, gourds and squash with unusual shapes and colors such as the three elongated ones shown here. You could also add one of the newer white “ghost pumpkins.” You only need to carve a few of them, but create unique faces. Set in front of a group of uncut pumpkins and gourds, you create a gathering of Halloween creatures.

Another option that is a bit more complex but very entertaining is placing two pumpkins together to show a conversation between them.

The pumpkin on the right has a more complex carving approach. There are directions and patterns on the Internet to help you create one of these, but you could stick with the standard carving style and still get an interesting vignette.

The stick hand on the right pumpkin also pushes this Halloween display out of the ordinary. Adding hands and feet to your carvings adds personality and charm.

You could add fall leaves to these arrangements, use props such as hats or other accessories, and even tell a simple story with your pumpkins. Halloween provides a terrific opportunity to stretch your imagination by thinking outside the squash.