| Decorating for Halloween By Kuzibah |
| Originally written for the Patient Creatures website, October 2003 edition, this essay contains advice for Halloween decorating. Archive- Please email request. Feedback- Absolutely. ******************* Halloween decorating is big business. What used to be a fairly homegrown affair, with homemade Jack-O-Lanterns, bedsheet ghosts, and scarecrows from Dad�s old flannel shirt is now the event second only to Christmas in money spent on home decoration displays. Department stores, which not so long ago might have only carried a few paper bats and cats for sale, now feature whole sections offering all manner of elaborate items to turn your house and yard into a spectacle to rival professional attractions. But I believe the best decorations are still the homemade ones. After all, anyone can just go and buy an 8-foot inflatable witch ($89.99 at Marshall Fields), but is that really more impressive and interesting than a circle of ghosts dancing around a tree or creepier than strange shadows moving past the windows? And creating your own tableaus allows for a far larger range of themes than the usual pumpkins/witches/Frankenstein�s monster that dominates the commercial market. And far scarier ones, as well. If you�ve been thinking about creating a spooky experience on your porch, in your yard, or in your home this Halloween, allow me to suggest a few ideas for creating the crypt, lab, graveyard, or haunted house of your dreams. Lighting~ Lighting is the simplest way to create an eerie effect, inside and out. Colored Lights- Dark colored lights, especially red, make everything look �off� since colors reflect differently. Colored bulbs can simply be put in your own lamp fixtures or porch lights for about $2 apiece. Black Lights- also called ultraviolet lights, these cause certain chemicals to fluoresce, or glow with their light. The lights come in bulbs or fluorescent tubes (the tubes are better for a large area). Then color anything you want to glow with fluorescent paint (available in craft stores) or Hi-liter markers. You can also make white cloth glow under black light by washing it in a strong bluing solution, or in Rit Dye Whitener, to make glowing ghosts. The Whitener can also be painted on white cloth to create glowing patterns. *Here�s another fun idea- replace the lights in your bathroom with black light and tie three yellow Hi-liter markers with the caps removed inside the toilet tank. The water will glow green with every flush! Strobe lights- These are lights that blink on and off very quickly. While they can be used with static displays, they�re really much more effective when people are moving around. Use them at a party (especially if you�re dancing) or turn one on just as trick-or-treaters approach your front door. Low-Angle Lighting- Putting a light as close to the ground or floor as you can is very effective in casting creepy shadows, and a spotlight aimed at a wall or garage door can be used with paper silhouettes on strings or sticks to create a whole shadow scene. Candles- Because candle flames move and flicker on their own, lighting with candles is the easiest way to create a Halloween atmosphere. I recommend tea lights, which are small candles in metal cups, because they burn at a cooler temperature than taper candles and don�t drip. You can put them just about anywhere, as long as they�re on a flame-resistant surface and away from things that will easily catch fire, like curtains. Small glasses, plates, and ceramic tiles all work well, and many department stores and gift shops sell tea light holders for Halloween in lots of fun shapes. If you want to put candles outside, you can put them in jars or glasses, or make luminaries of small paper bags half-filled with damp sand with a candle pressed halfway into the sand. Again, some stores sell special paper bags for this purpose printed with Halloween designs. Make sure the luminaries are on a flat, non-flammable surface, like a sidewalk or driveway. Glow Sticks- These are plastic sticks that contain a chemical that glows for about six hours. They come in a variety of colors, and run about $1 apiece. They aren�t very bright, and you certainly couldn�t light a room with them, but they are very versatile for smaller light effects. I�ve seen people sink them in punch bowls, put them in Jack-O-Lanterns, hide them inside dolls so the light shines out through the eyes (this is very creepy in a dark room, let me tell you), and just about anywhere else you can think of. Oriental Trading has the largest color assortment I�ve seen. Effects~ Fog- Excellent for creating atmosphere--- literally. The best way to create fog in an enclosed space (like, say, inside your house) is dry ice. Dry ice isn�t really ice at all, it�s frozen carbon dioxide, and it�s extremely cold, about �100 degrees F, so be sure to wear protective gloves and be careful not to let it touch your skin. That being said, it�s odorless, evaporates directly from solid form into harmless carbon dioxide, and is not very expensive. To create fog, put some dry ice pellets or a block into a bucket or pot and cover it with warm water. The warmer the water, the more intense the fog, the cooler the water, the longer the fog lasts. Experiment a little to get the effect you want. You can also put some in a punch bowl or mug, but be sure it has evaporated completely before you drink (this is easy to see, as small pieces float on the surface of the liquid and jump around.) For large areas, you will probably want to rent or buy a fog machine. A small one can be purchased for under $50. These use a chemical oil that, when heated, produces a dense, heavy smoke. This fog is NOT odorless, and can irritate people with lung conditions (like asthma), but in a well-ventilated area (like, say, outside), you should be okay. Most foggers have an on-off switch and are small enough to be carried around to distribute the fog, so with a little fiddling around you can get a natural-looking mist over your yard. Again, experiment a bit to get the look you want. Recently, I�ve also seen electric mini foggers that can be submerged in water to create a layer of fine mist on the surface, but these are very small and used mainly for those little decorative tabletop fountains. Still, they could be used to create an effective centerpiece provided the bowl they were in was specially stocked appropriately (that little ceramic skull you use as a bookend, for instance.) Spider-webbing- Bags of �fake spider webs� run about 59� in every drugstore, right alongside the little candy bars, but it takes a lot of patience to get them looking good. The secret is, the more you stretch them, the better they look, so have a lot of thumbtacks to secure the edges stretched tight. Think one bag of webs for about a 6� x 6� square. Use the �glow-in-the-dark� variety along with black light (see above) for a glowing web effect. Of course, plain white string can also be used, but again, have patience with your design and string it back and forth and all around. This works really well on wooden porches with railings, going all around the rails and up and down to the roof. In both cases, add some big hairy fake spiders, either purchased, or, even better, made yourself from papier-m�ch� or painted Styrofoam balls. Sound- Of course, no scene is complete without sound. For parties, well, it depends on the crowd. For dancing, there are any number of �Halloween Party� mixes commercially available. I�m partial to the �Elvira� mixes, but most of them include the classics: Monster Mash, Ghostbusters, Werewolves of London. For a harder rocking crowd try anything by Rob Zombie. For atmospheric eeriness, go with Midnight Syndicate, Dead Can Dance, or horror movie soundtracks. Or, if you�re able to burn CDs on your computer, make your own mix of your favorite spooky songs. To add sound to outdoor displays or for general spookiness, I recommend Disney�s �Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House.� This is the best general spooky sound effects recording I�ve heard, with a series of short vignettes in sound. But, it�s hard to find, so if you can�t get a copy, the dozens of cheap knockoffs out there are acceptable substitutes and fairly interchangeable. Don�t pay more than a few dollars for these imitations, though. Decorations and Props~ Silhouettes- For the money, these are easily the most cost effective decoration in terms of creeps per dollar. Get large sheets of black paper and make spooky bats, cats, owls, spiders, and monsters. Hang them on the wall, or dangle small ones inside lampshades. Or get black adhesive shelf paper to make silhouettes that stick to windows and mirrors. Under the right eerie lighting (see above) these simple black shadows can be very unsettling in a way full color isn�t. *Martha Stewart�s magazine recommended this effect: If you have a staircase with light-colored risers (the front part of the step) make a tall silhouette and cut it into horizontal strips, each strip the height of a stair. Then reassemble in sequence up the staircase so it isn�t immediately obvious what it is until seen head on. Really, this is a very startling effect. Dummies and Scarecrows- These are so easy. Just secure old clothes together with safety pins (including gloves at the ends of sleeves and socks at the ankles of trousers) and stuff the whole thing with wadded newspaper. Use a small cloth sack or plastic bag filled with paper for the head and add a scary mask and wig or hat. Prop them in chairs, hang them from trees (maybe by a noose), stand them on tall stakes, leave legs sticking out from under beds and bushes, or wherever. If you can get a dress mannequin or, better yet, a full-sized plastic skeleton, dress them in creepy clothes and sit them at the dinner table. Wood-Cuts- A little more labor-intensive, but a marvelous effect. When we attended the Halloween Opera last month, the chairman on the event, Rebecca, created hundreds of wood cuts from �� plywood in standard shapes (moon, star, skull, round pumpkin face) and painted them with muted colors in simple patterns. She hung them from strings or mounted them on wooden dowels. They were absolutely wonderful, and we begged her for some afterwards. She graciously gifted us with several. If a hundred seems ambitious, start with a half-dozen, and hang them around your door, or on your garden gate. They�re old-fashioned and quite charming, plus they last for years. This also works well for fake grave-stones; paint them like stone with funny or creepy epitaphs and mount them on short stakes to secure them in the ground. Shrunken Apple Heads- Peel a large apple and coat it with a mixture of � cup lemon juice and 2 tsp. salt to preserve it. Carve faces onto the apples with a small knife. Make the features big, since small details will be lost when they dry. You can use beads or whole cloves for eyes and grains of rice for teeth, but they look fine without these details. Set the apple faces in a warm, dry place on a wire rack and let them dry for about two weeks. Mount the dry heads on thin dowels in a flower arrangement, put them in jars, or just set them on a shelf. Ghosts- The simplest ghosts are large balls or balloons draped with a sheet, but this basic design can be easily modified. Use a lighter, more drape-y fabric, like bleached muslin, gauze, netting, or tulle. Wash the cloth in bluing or Rit Whitener to make it react to black light (see above). Use a mask or fake skull for the head or drape the cloth over a wire armature. Natural Items- The symbols of Halloween are the symbols of Autumn, and the harvest, so items found in the natural environment are very effective in creating the Halloween mood. Pumpkins, dried corn shocks, colored leaves, and bales of hay, of course, are typical, but what about gourds, dried flowers, and gnarled, leafless branches? Found Items- I, personally, am on the lookout for weird and creepy items to add to the funereal d�cor of my home all the time, but I realize, for many people, that Halloween is not the year-round occupation it is for me. Still, it�s fun to look at items at thrift shops and rummage sales that might otherwise be of no interest through pumpkin-colored glasses. Old furniture can be re-painted and distressed. Clothes far too out-of-fashion or damaged to be worn look great on dummies (see above). Bric-a-brac that�s much too unattractive for everyday looks interesting draped in fake spider-webs under candlelight, or creates strange silhouettes placed on a windowsill. Paint baby dolls as macabre playthings. Fill interesting bottles and jars with herbs and colored liquid and display them on the mantelpiece. Get Crafty- Finally, you can create your own props using your own special skills. Use papier-m�ch� or craft clay to sculpt figurines. Paint old furniture with weird faux finishes, or create strange �family portraits� to hang in the hallway. Sew your own costumes and dolls. If you�re a good wood-crafter, try your hand at large props, like coffins, or even facades to turn your lawn into a creepy castle or crypt. Let your imagination go wild. Jack-O-Lanterns~ I�ve saved the quintessential Halloween decoration for last. The Jack-O-Lantern is pretty much synonymous with the holiday. As the heart is to St. Valentine�s Day and the tree is to Christmas, the pumpkin with the face *is* Halloween. One is quite elegant. A few grouped together is grand. A dozen or more can be a most impressive display. And hundreds, as appear at Jack-O-Lantern festivals across the United States, can be a breathtaking and magnificent spectacle. Here are a few Jack-O-Lantern basics: Start by cutting a 6 inch circle around the pumpkin stem with a sharp knife, then pull this piece out and set it aside. Using a metal spoon or other tools (see below) remove the seeds and stringy pulp from inside the pumpkin and discard. Scrape the inside pulp of the pumpkin as closely and smoothly as possible. Then using a sharp paring knife, carve the design in the pumpkin. Remember, you don�t need to cut all the way through the pumpkin, cutting through the outer skin and varying amounts of flesh creates a translucent effect and allows for more fine detail (since you don�t have to worry about the design holding together). Then put in a tea light, glow stick, or battery powered light to illuminate your creation. But the Jack-O-Lantern need not be limited to faces (although there is wide variation even then). Pumpkin Masters�, through their books and videos, have popularized more artistic designs on pumpkins. Many magazines and websites feature these and similar creations, with faces of celebrities, movie monsters, and spooky scenes reproduced as Jack-O-Lanterns. Abstract designs are another possibility, covering pumpkins with designs and patterns, and Martha Stewart (again) has done articles in her magazine and on her show carving them as old-fashioned gravestones, with skulls, hourglasses, and Gothic epitaphs, and with doors and shuttered windows to create Jack-O-Lantern houses for the spirits that wander the world on Halloween. To create your Jack-O-Lantern masterpiece, skip the plastic pumpkin-carving kits, which are pretty flimsy and ineffective, and run by the hardware store (or down to the workbench) for a few �professional� pumpkin carving tools: Plaster scrapers- to remove all the stringy pulp from inside and make the shell thinner. Miniature saws and keyhole saws- to make small, finely detailed openings. Electric drill- for small, perfectly round holes. Linoleum cutters- to remove the outer skin and layers of flesh. Plastic Craft Lights- sold in craft stores for ceramic Christmas trees, you can insert these into small drill holes for color. Glass beads also work. Creating a Diorama~ Now that you have a lot of individual elements, you can always put them together to create a small scene. Front porches are a natural setting, or expand into the entire front yard. Inside, set aside part of a room, or a natural staging area, such as a staircase landing, or create a smaller scene on a table, on the fireplace hearth, or in a window bay. The diorama can simply feature a few elements: Giant spiders in a web, ghosts dancing across the lawn, or a hanged man dangling from a tree limb. They can portray an eerie setting: a fortune-teller�s table with her cards and crystals ready for use, a mad-scientist�s lab table, or a graveyard shrouded in fog. Or create an elaborate scene with many elements (including family members in costume): Witches cooking up a bubbling brew, vampires rising from their graves, or an Egyptian burial chamber complete with mummy. If the idea of a big display intrigues you but seems overwhelming, start small on a multi-year plan. Take the witch scene, for example. The first year, dress as a witch, get an old-fashioned broom, and keep the dry ice bubbling in a plastic cauldron while you hand out the goodies. Year two, get a nice, metal cauldron, a toy black cat, and arrange some odd jars with labels like �newt eyes� and �frog whiskers� along a windowsill. Year three, set up a CD player with the soundtrack from �The Exorcist,� replace your porch light with a red bulb, and attach some prop ravens to the railing. Year four, turn your front parlor into a witch�s lair with more props and lots of candles, and greet the trick-or-treaters with a cackling, �come on in, dearies�� Well, you get the idea. Remember that any event is most valued for the memories it creates. The candy you give the trick-or-treaters will be gone in a day or two. The memory of the place they got it is what will last, and bring more to your door next year. Good luck, and have a very Happy Halloween. Main Menu ~ Return to Odds and Ends Menu |