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!

Ghostly Handouts

Party favors and trick-or-treat offerings are easy to make with the right materials and a creative idea. Try making paper-mache surprises your guests or visiting ghouls can’t wait to open. Blow up miniature balloons (not too full; about halfway is fine) and paper-mache over them with glue and pieces of torn-up newspaper or orange or white tissue paper to create round “pumpkins” or “skulls”.

Leave a small opening at the top to “pop” and remove your balloon, then fill with candy and treats and seal over with an extra piece of paper. For newspaper designs paint them first, then add details with a black magic marker. Fill a spooky bowl for guests to help themselves or for easy handouts to trick-or-treaters.

Haunted Hors d’ouvres

A platter of ghoulish goodies should cause your guests to shrink a little before sampling these tasty treats. Like deviled “eyeballs” made from eggs sliced in half, the devil’s food tinted with food coloring — add half a green or black olive for the pupil.

“Severed fingers” spice up any Halloween party platter — roll up won ton or pastry wraps with sweet red fillings like strawberry jam, mold in the shape of a finger, then bake for five minutes. Jam should spill from the open “severed” end; cap the closed-off fingertips with painted-on icing nails.

A Perfect Centerpiece

Whether it’s your windowsill or the middle of table loaded with Halloween party goodies, a spooky centerpiece is second only to the carved Jack o’ Lantern. Create a haunted gingerbread house by substituting the normal Christmas goodies with Halloween favorites like mini sugar pumpkins, candy corn, and foil-wrapped ghoulish candies.

Or create a “tombstone cake” just beckoning visitors to sample a slice. Cut a sheet cake in shape of a tombstone, ice with grey marbled icing (mix white and black) or chocolate, then add a spooky inscription and engravings with squeeze bottle of icing.
For an “upright” tombstone, cover your sheet cake with chocolate icing and crumbled Oreo “dirt” then add a painted cardboard backdrop cut in the shape of a grave headstone — a skeletal hand popping from the dirt (or a few gummy worms) makes the perfect finishing touch.

Your spooky Halloween party atmosphere needs only a little creativity to frighten guests into a good time. A few extra-special decorations will make it a party perfect for all ages.