Seasonal

10 Outdoor Halloween Decorating Tips

Get your outdoor spaces ready for a frightfully fun Halloween

Halloween is just around the corner, and that means getting ready when trick-or-treaters come to call. Cast a spell over your entire neighborhood and create a scary setting that will draw in costumed children and adults in droves. A little imagination is all it takes to outfit your house as the place ghouls call home and make lasting memories for treat-seeking visitors.

From seasonal classics such as pumpkins to sinister scarecrows, wicked witches to ghoulish ghosts, there’s something for everyone when it comes to Halloween decorations. Here’s ten tips for decorating your yard and porch for Halloween.

Halloween Wreaths

1. Hang a wreath

Show off your Halloween spirit by hanging a wreath on your door that’s decorated for the holiday. Pick wreaths with black, orange, purple, or gray colors incorporated in the designs.

Pro tip: Embellish it with mini skulls, bats, witch’s hats, spiders, small pumpkins, black cats, snakes, owls, or ravens for a look sure to delight anyone who visits.

Halloween Themed Doormats

2. Themed doormats

When Halloween happenings are afoot, decorate your front entry with a themed-doormat to greet the trick-or-treaters when they come to the door. Whether funny or frightening, a doormat in seasonal color with Halloween motifs and messages makes a welcome addition to your outdoor décor.

3. Decorate your front door

You’ll be greeting costumed trick-or-treaters at your front door, so go ahead and give the door a costume as well! Mummify it in gauze wrappings. Splatter it with fake blood and gothic messages. Stick decal cut-out silhouettes of witches, bats, spiders, or pumpkins on its surface or in transom windows surrounding it. Make some menacing eyes out of colored paper and tape them on the door. You can also hang a festive fall garland around the door frame.

Pro tip: leave out a bowl of candy next to your door for trick-or-treaters to help themselves if you are escorting your own children around the neighborhood.

4. Mood lighting

Add some spooky string lights around your front gate, porch railing, light post, or portico balustrade. Choose either standard-style lights with orange, black, or purple bulbs, or pick novelty string lights with skulls, pumpkin, or ghost-shaped bulbs. Then, kick it up a notch with novelty string lights featuring skulls, pumpkin, or ghost-shaped bulbs. Place flickering candle lanterns on your stoop and around the door amid jack-o’-lanterns to help light the path when spirits come out to play.

Pro tip: Use some motion-sensors to activate some light effects when visitors walk by to add an element of surprise.

Animatronic Figures

5. Animatronic figures

Spook the unsuspecting souls who wander into your yard with some life-size animatronic figures. Position them in strategic locations such as next to the bowl of treats at your door, peeking out from behind bushes and trees, or along the paths where only the most daring walk. Use them to turn your front yard into a zombie apocalypse, a witch’s coven where they cast spells over a cauldron, or a nightmarish landscape where ghouls, goblins, and spooks from the underworld come out to play. With lights, sound effects, and motion, these figures will give visitors an experience they won’t forget.

6. Yard signs

Whether you want to scare them, warn them, or amuse them, a yard sign is a way to get your message across to Halloween visitors. Some are designed to hang on your door with ribbons or wire loops. Some signs come on wood brooms as posts to prop against your porch railing, while others feature lawn stakes to mount on the ground.

7. Tombstones and skeletons

Turn up the fear factor by creating a cemetery on your lawn. Place a few store-bought or DIY gravestones made of Styrofoam and painted to look aged and decrepit. Prop a skeleton or two against some of the tombstones and scatter some loose skulls and bones about. Release the undead from their graves by adding zombie heads or hands raising up from the ground. Create a chilling display of ghostly figures by wrapping old ripped sheets, gauze, or cheesecloth material around Styrofoam mannequin heads that you can find in craft stores or wig shops. You can make them freestanding with a wire or wood ground stake attached to the neck under the fabric or hang them from trees to flutter in the wind.

Pro tip: Pipe in some foreboding music with a hidden outdoor speaker for a scarier experience.

Spider Décor

8. Spiders and creepy crawlies

Spiders, mice, snakes, bugs, and other crawling critters ae unsettling to most people, so it’s only natural that they make good decorations for Halloween. Festoon your shrubbery, trees, and stair railings with fake spider webs made from cotton batting or black string. Position some rat figurines next to a cauldron filled with dry ice, and wrap some rubber snakes around posts and beams.

Pro tip: Hang a few spiders so they drop down from the webs for a frightening close encounter.

Inflatable Outdoor Décor

9. Fun inflatables

If silly is more your style than scary, try filling your yard with inflatable figurines. They are sure to entertain younger children with their fun (and even comical) designs and colors. Ranging in size from small to oversized, they are easy to assemble. Simply unfold them, plug them into an electrical outlet, and watch as the built-in motorized air blower inflates them in minutes.

10. Fall foliage

Accent your outdoor planters with dried stalks, faux black roses, gnarly branches, and autumn leaves for displays in tune with the season. Attach some fake eyeballs on bamboo skewers and insert them among your potted plants. Decorate your porch with bundles of dried corn husks tied with festive Halloween-themed ribbon. Add some squash gourds and pumpkins for a boo-tiful botanical display.

If you’re ready to take your Halloween décor to the next level and make your home the talk of the neighborhood this season, browse our Halloween Shop at Riverbend Home. You’ll find a great selection of outdoor décor and accessories to show your festive spirit and create truly spooky scenery just outside your front door.