Halloweeen Decorating

TEN TIPS FOR A SPIRITED HALLOWEEN PARTY
BY LILLIAN VERNON
FOUNDER OF THE LILLIAN VERNON PRINT AND ONLINE CATALOGS
WWW.LILLIANVERNON.COM

Halloween is a fun holiday because it gives you a chance to dress in costumes, enjoy treats and play innocent tricks. Although once considered a children’s holiday, Halloween is no longer a celebration solely for kids but a day that everyone can enjoy. With the recent emphasis on Halloween safety, adults and children are choosing to have parties at home rather than participate in traditional door-to-door trick-or-treating. “A Halloween party that guests will remember includes unique decorations that
set the perfect mood,” according to Lillian Vernon, founder of the Lillian Vernon catalogs and website which market Halloween decorations and specialize in costumes for children.

Here are Lillian’s tips for the perfect Halloween party:

OUTSIDE THE HOUSE

1. Start by decorating the outside of your home since this is the first impression your guests will have and it will help put them in the party spirit. Arrange a “family” of pumpkins sitting on a bench or on lawn chairs set up in your front yard. Decorate the pumpkins with painted faces, wigs and hats. Use festive and colorful clothing for their bodies and stuff them with plastic bags filled with newspapers.

2. Hang a seasonal wreath or swag on the front door. The arrangement can be simple autumn leaves in fall colors, Indian corn tied together, or, for a more dramatic look, a wreath lit in the center with a battery-operated jack-o-lantern. For another welcoming touch, greet your guests with a seasonal doormat shaped like a pumpkin, ghost, or witch.

3. Illuminate trees in your front lawn so they sparkle with garlands of Halloween-themed lights from pumpkins to witches or ghosts. Position black cats on metal stakes around the trees and on the walkway leading up to your house.

4. Turn the front yard into a spooky cemetery by erecting several tombstones on the lawn made from plywood or foam board painted gray. Add funny epitaphs to the tombstones under headings such as Count Dracula, the Mummy, the Werewolf of London and Frankenstein. For an even scarier effect, place a tub of dry ice behind a tombstone in the middle of the cemetery so it gives off a cloud of white smoke.


INSIDE THE HOUSE

5. To create mood lighting, hang strings of orange and black bulbs around the house and glow-in-the-dark skeletons. Place decorative Halloween candles throughout the party scene.

6. Surprise your guests by suspending bats and spiders from the ceiling on fishing tackle line so they appear to be flying through the air. You can make the bats and spiders with felt or paper mache.

7. Decorate the windows of your home with stained glass pumpkins and other Halloween figures made from construction paper.

8. Play scary music that you can find in the holiday section of any music store. Look for music that has a combination of strange sound effects like doors creaking and songs like “I’m Your Boogie Man, “I Put A Spell On You,” “Love Potion Number Nine,” and “Ghostbusters.”

9. Everyone loves candy on Halloween so arrange sweets in themed bowls. For a unique centerpiece, fill some rubber gloves with water, tie the ends together and freeze overnight. You can add food coloring to the water for a ghoulish effect. The frozen hands should slip right out of the gloves by giving them a quick dunk in hot water. Put a cluster of frozen hands on a platter surrounded by chocolate bars and put some candy corn in the hands so your centerpiece will be a real attention-grabber.

10. Use orange and black tablecloths, plates, napkins and utensils. Hang orange and black balloons from the ceiling and tie them with coordinating colored string.