Spooky Concepts for a Haunted Yard This Halloween

Turn your yard into a haunted landscape this Halloween using a few simple crafts and a little imagination. Whether you want a night of the living dead or a scene straight from Stephen King, anything is possible ….

Cemetery Scene

Create a spooky cemetery using cardboard, cotton balls, and a little cheesecloth. Cut large sheets of cardboard in the shape of tombstones, then sponge paint grey with a little brown and moss green to create a stone effect. Stencils will let you add spooky epitaphs before sticking your creations in your lawn using lawn stakes. Pull apart cotton balls to create spider webs and craft ghosts out of raggedy cheesecloth fabric suspended with string. Shiny black bats cut from plastic tarp are also a perfect touch.

Night of the Living Dead

Haunt your garden this Halloween with the Living Dead … or at least a good imitation. Use wire and old clothes to create “limbs” protruding from a little fresh earth in your lawn as these ghoulish visitors crawl from the earth. Stuff the sleeves and legs with batting and use shoes and gloves to create hands and feet. Pose them in lifelike positions and add a little “grunge” using pale grey paint, dirt, and other materials to make your emerging zombies more authentic.

Spider Tree

Bring Shelob’s lair to life in a front yard tree using paper-mache spiders and cotton cobwebs. Craft your spiders from balloons and paper-mache, adding pipe cleaner limbs and Styrofoam ball heads before painting. Dangle them from white yarn strands, with pulled-apart cotton balls for cobwebs. Construct your Spider Queen from a large round rubber balloon and paper mache, with black plastic streamers for legs and a large Styrofoam head. Paint a red hour glass on the back and add as many menacing details as you please.

Make your haunted yard the talk of the neighborhood with a few imaginative touches and enjoy your guests’ astonishment as they cross your haunted landscape this Halloween!