It’s no secret that I love Halloween! Our neighborhood goes big for Halloween every year and it’s so fun seeing everyone’s decorations throughout the month. I love hearing all of the littles walk by and just ooo and awww over everything too. Fall really is the best time of the year!
I try to get the majority of our Halloween decor up as early as I can, but we always save the best props and lighting for Halloween weekend. We use everything from lighting and projections to pumpkins and skeletons and everything in between to put on a good show for Halloween night.
Each year I design the yard a little differently than the last and this year I’m going with a scarecrow pumpkin patch, I cannot wait to bring it to life. I’ll make sure to share all of the details in the next post or two, but in the meantime, I’ve rounded up some of the best Halloween decorations that I make sure to include every year, a few are real game changers and I’ll explain why below. There are so many fun things out there that anyone could use to create a fun Halloween space in no time so read on for a few of my favorite things and then get decorating!
1. Halloween Projections
Projections are one of our favorite things to use for Halloween!! We always use some type of projection in our decorations and often use them in both windows as well as a pumpkin projection in the front yard. (don’t have a projector, I got you! This is the one we use and we have 3 and love them, just drop the files onto a usb drive that plugs into the projector and hit play, then put it on repeat and it’ll loop through your video all night).
We have gotten all of our Halloween projections from AtmosFX and here are a few of our favs:
Their new Season of the Witch is so cool! If we were going with a witch theme this year I would have these in both windows and figure out how to get them in the yard or on our roof too!
We also love Bone Chillers, last year I had the dancing skeletons in one window and the band of skeletons in the other to make it seem like our home was one big skeleton party.
But the real hit every year is the Jack-O’-Lantern Jamboree, the little kids walking the neighborhood are really drawn to these and sometimes stay and watch them all the way through, so we usually set them up front and center like we did a couple of years ago.
2. Pumpkins
It’s not Halloween without pumpkins, so hit up your local Trader Joes or pumpkin patch and stock up! I personally love the wonky ones. You know, lop sided, have a huge stem, or a side too tall or short, doesn’t matter, I just love the weird ones. You can carve them, project onto them, or even just pile them up on each side of the front door. Pick what you love and bring ’em home, the more the merrier in my personal opinion.
3. Skeletons
Like pumpkins, you can never really have enough. I know, they break over time, hands, arms and legs fall off, but keep them, you can turn those skeleton parts into graveyard scenes, or have random parts coming out of walls, bushes, trees and more. I usually grab up skeletons in after Halloween sales, but if you need them now, Target and Home Depot have so many!
I love this life-size skeleton!
And this average size gold skeleton is perfect!
They also have all the animals, mermaids, dogs and more! Get what you love and what inspires you, then get them in the yard, everyone will love it!
We dressed all of our skeletons up as farmers last year, but even a fun wig and hat will do. The sky is the limit with skeletons, they can be used for years to come!! If you have the average size, you’ll need to order adult XS-S, or youth L-XL clothing so keep that in mind. But you can dress them up as anything from farmers to scarecrows, or even a ghost bride (which I did a few years back). Get creative here and bring in wigs, plastic eye balls, props and anything you need to make it realistic!
4. Lighting!!
Don’t forget the lighting! We love these black lights from Amazon, just look how they light up the yard. We light to paint some of the props and tombstones with neon light paint and it really makes everything pop once the black light turns on.
5. Spooky fabric + Cob Webs
I like to drape this spooky fabric and tons of cob webs over our front door and walkway so it’s extra dark and scary for Halloween. We usually just have a bowl of candy kids can grab from so we do our best to make the patch to the front door as scary as possible.
7. Car Decorations
And if you have cars parked along the street where trick-or-treaters walk by, I highly recommend adding a skeleton or other prop into the driver seat. Last year I dressed up an old skeleton as Penny Wise and put him in the driver’s seat of my truck. I think he scared more people walking by than our pop-up zombie did!
Bloodthirsty Betty would be fun to try this year in our car! It’s an older animatronic from Spirit Halloween, but it didn’t really work like we thought so we mostly just use it as a prop now since her face is pretty scary.
Thanks for stopping by!
Do you have any Halloween decorations you love to use? I’d love to hear about, leave a comment and let me know.
