Getting your home ready for Halloween

Halloween takes place this weekend and there's no better time to decorate your home.

Here's a few spook-tacular tips to get your home looking the best for all those trick or treaters on October 31st.

1 Decorate your lawn

If you have a lawn that you'd like to make Halloween-ready, there are many creepy things you can do to decorate the outside of your home. The lawn sets the tone for the rest of the home, so if it's spooky enough, it'll make people even curious to see what you have in store up-close. Here are some easy ways to decorate your lawn:

• Old crunchy fall leaves should cover the ground. If there haven't been many fallen leaves, you should avoid raking your lawn during the days leading up to Halloween to make the most of what you have.
• Take an old pair of boots and have them emerging out of a big pile of leaves or dirt. This will make it look like there's a dead body on your lawn!
• Stick tombstones out of the ground. Remember that Halloween is all about things being old, dingy, and falling-apart, so your lawn does not have to be perfectly arranged. Have a tombstone here, a tombstone there, and another tombstone that is completely crooked or falling over.
• If you have trees, cover them with spider webs. Bonus points if you can stick some creepy-crawly critters in them, or if you can add a stuffed owl or raven to a low-hanging branch.
• Throw some skulls around the ground.
• Have a skeleton popping out of the ground.
• If you really want to do it up for Halloween, have your car parked out on the lawn. Paint the windows to make it look like they're cracked, and make it look like a person is trapped inside by putting in a dummy with its hands pushed against the windows.

2 Decorate your front porch

Your front porch will be the portal to all of the creepy things inside your home, so it should be as scary as possible to lure your unsuspecting guests (or victims) inside your house of horrors. Here are some great ways to add some Halloween spice to your front porch:

• Add some more spiderwebs to your porch. Your guests could get caught in them without knowing it.
• The silhouette of a black cat or two will raise the creep factor.
• A few stuffed rats on the floor will help set the scene.
• A bucket of dead white flowers will look perfect on your porch.
• Scatter some tree branches on the ground.
• A few pumpkins will add a nice touch to your porch. They can be carved with ghoulish designs, or painted black, silver, or with glitter.
• Hang a ghost from your porch. Just cut some holes in an old sheet and throw it over an old beach ball that you hang from the ceiling.
• If you have an old rocking chair, cover it with spider webs and put it in a place where it will rock and creak as much as possible.

3 Decorate your front door and windows

The door and window are the eyes and mouth of your home's Halloween soul, so you should make the most of them. Adding just a few ghoulish touches to your front door and windows will make your house look haunted. Here are a few things to try:

• Have a spooky doormat.
• Hang a wreath covered in bats on the front door.
• Splatter some fake blood on your front door. Just make sure it can easily come off.
• If you're really going all out, make it look like you've boarded up your windows by sticking some light wood beams over the glass and sticking them to the glass with duct tape. This will make your house look abandoned, and therefore spooky.
• Take an old mannequin and cover it in a formal black or red dress. Stick it in a window that everyone will see, preferably a second-floor or attic window if you have one. Shine a flashlight under the mannequin to create a ghostly effect.

4 Make your furniture spooky

There are a few small but effective tricks to making your home look abandoned, creepy, and ready for Halloween. Here are a few things to try:

• Cover your couches and chairs with white sheets. Pick the oldest sheets you have to make it look like your home hasn't been used for years. Extra points if the sheets have some natural-looking holes in them.
• Cover your tables with tattered black tablecloths. Take an old black sheet and cut ragged edges all over it.
• Drape your bookshelves in spiderwebs. If you have spooky books that are particularly perfect for Halloween, such as the works of Edgar Allen Poe, display them prominently on the shelf or even place them on a side table.
• Strategically place a few fake skulls to spice up drab pieces of furniture.

5 Light up your home

Your lights will help set the eerie ambiance for your home, so you should make the most of the lights you have while keeping the house looking fairly dim, so that something spooky could pop up at any time. If it's too bright in your home, you won't have enough room for mystery. Here are some ways to have the perfect Halloween lights:

• Tape plastic bats to the inside of the shade of an ordinary lamp. When you light the lamp, the bats will stick out. Just make sure you don't put them too close to the light bulb.
• Light some white candles with "blood" dripping down them. Simply put some white candles over a towel or paper towel, and light a red candle over them until you've dripped enough wax over it to make it look like fake blood is oozing down the sides.
• Light a few orange paper lanterns and drape them all over the house.
• Carve a spooky face, a silhouette, or another spooky design on a pumpkin and light the inside.
• Keep a few small white candles lit throughout the house. Scatter some fake black bugs around them for effect.
• If all of your lamps are really bright, replace the bulbs with dimmer ones to maximize the scary lighting.

6 Use pumpkins

Halloween would not be the same without pumpkins, so you should use your pumpkin decorations to your advantage. You don't have to overdo it with the pumpkins, but thinking of clever ways to introduce more pumpkins into your decor will make your home boo-tiful.

• Hang some pumpkin balloons. Just take a few orange balloons and paint a scary face on them in a black sharpie. Scatter them on the floor or hang them from the ceiling.
• Take some pumpkins and paint them black, silver, or cover them in glitter. Arrange them in the corners of your home.
• Open up a pumpkin and use it to hold potpourri.
• Use pumpkin dishes to hold your Halloween treats.
• If you've made a special pumpkin punch, serve it from a pumpkin bowl.

7 Add specimen jars to your home

Take some big glass jars, fill them with water, and throw in a drops of green dye until water is a nice, gross green hue. Put the jars on display in your kitchen under some lights or in another part of your home where they can be prominently displayed. Here's what you can place in the jars:

• Any old unidentifiable items, like an old doll's arm, a child's toy from ten years ago, or any random nick knacks that have been floating around your house for years.
• Put in some dead flowers, poppy pods, or pine cones.
• Throw in a small skull or some fake eyeballs that will float to the top.

8 Have spooky walls

Your walls can do a lot to make your home look even more spooky. Just adding a few things to the paintings and walls you already have will make your haunted home come alive. Here are a few things you can do:

• Cover up some of your paintings with white cloth. This will help further your "abandoned home" look.
• Draw creepy eyes on your mirrors, so people will get scared when you look into them.
• Cover your paintings with fake blood. Just make sure you put it over paintings that are framed behind glass and that it washes off.
• Hang spiderwebs all over your walls. You can pull apart big chunks of cotton, use old cheesecloth, or get some spiderwebs at the store.

9 Cover your home with creepy surprises

Make the ordinary extraordinary by adding a few additional touches to complete your home's Halloween look. Here are a few things you can try:

• Place an old birdcage on the floor. Make sure the door is hanging open. Scatter some fake rats on the bottom.
• Take a bunch of tree branches from outside, and stick them in flower pots.
• Set up a bouquet of nice white roses, and then cover them with little fake black ants, spiders, and caterpillars.
• Make a bat garland out of black construction paper and drape it all over your home.