Bring Your Halloween Party to Life with Decorations

Planning a spook-tacular celebration for friends, family, and neighbors this year? Bring your party to life with Halloweern party decorations that are fun, festive, and frightening. The décor will help get everyone in the Halloween spirit and make it a much more memorable occasion. 

Before you explore Halloween party décor ideas, pick a theme for the party as this will likely influence the types decorations that you'll want to display. No one wants to have disorganized party décor that doesn’t match or flow together.

Here are four easy themes that you can use to pull together cohesive Halloween party decorations:

• Skull & bones: Scary Halloween decorations help transform any space into a haunted house of horror. Use skull and bones to help you achieve this type of spooky décor. Start by placing fake skulls and skeleton bones on tabletops, mantels, floors, and around the food table. Next, create tombstones out of cardboard or Styrofoam that say “RIP” on the front. Display the tombstones around the edge of the party space. Add additional decorations such as black and purple streamers, balloons, and a fog machine. Your party will look just like a spooky graveyard!

• Spiders: This theme is not for people with arachnophobia! However, if you can handle spiders, transform your party space using fake cobwebs and fake spiders of varying sizes. Place the cobwebs on the walls, mantels, and on tabletops. Attach the spiders to the cobwebs to create a creepy crawly look. Add additional Halloween party decorations such as streamers, fog machines, and balloons to make the space look even scarier.

• Pumpkin Patch: Pumpkins are classic party decorations for Halloween because they work for any type of Halloween celebration. In particular, they work well outdoors. If you can't bring your party to a real pumpkin patch, bring the pumpkin patch to your party! Purchase bales of hay to put in the backyard. You can use them as seating and to display any pumpkin decorations you've created prior to the event. Have a mix of regular pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, and mini pumpkins—some decorated already and make some available for guests to decorate at the party. Another fun touch to create the feel of a pumpkin patch is to add pretty flower arrangements and make your own scarecrow!

• Mummies & Ghosts: Create a night of the living dead inspired Halloween décor using homemade mummies and ghosts. To make your mummy, use a mannequin and cover it head to toe with white medical gauze or toilet paper.  Make two or three to display around the party. To make your ghosts, you will need a white sheet, a ball the size of a head, twine, and glue. Place the sheet over the ball so that about two-three feet hang freely at the bottom. Then secure with glue or tape. Make about 5-6 ghosts depending on the size of the space. Hang the ghosts from the ceiling using twine or rope. To complete this spooktacular look, add some additional decorations such as fake cobwebs, purple lighting, pumpkins, tombstones, and white candles.

Once you've selected your themed Halloween party decorations, add in other elements to enhance the party decor. Black lights, for example, look really cool on cobwebs. For the pumpkin patch party, string white lights across the backyard. Once you've got the primary decorations in place, you'll be able to easily spot areas that you can fill with other decorations.