By Alden Smith
Because Halloween is a pagan festival, dating back to the Druids and beyond, decorations for the holiday is rich in earth and harvest symbols. Black cats, bats, witches and ghosts, pumpkins and cornstalks, spiders and cobwebs all abound. Here, we discuss ways to decorate for Halloween, from simple to elaborate.
Use Your Imagination
Think about what you want to achieve. If you are throwing a big Halloween party, then you would want to have a more elaborate setup than you would normally have if just entertaining trick-or-treaters. Instead of buying ready-made decorations, make them yourself. This is a good opportunity to get the kids involved, and it could turn into a yearly event.
If you are handy with imaging programs such as Gimp or Photoshop, you can design much of your decorations. Many arts and crafts stores and online dealers have just about anything you could imagine to help you in making your decorations.
Pumpkins And Such
The first thing that comes to mind about Halloween is carved pumpkins. A quick search for Halloween patterns online took me to Mannie’s Halloween Page, where he walks you through making pumpkin carving patterns made in Photoshop. A lot of scrapbooking sites also have themed patterns. Because pumpkins are organic, don’t make the mistake of getting them too early. If you must decorate early then buy plastic pumpkins! Carving pumpkins is a great way to once again get the kids involved. On the market is pumpkin carving kits that are safe for kids to use with supervision. Patterns can be drawn on the pumpkin and then carved out.
It’s All About Lighting
No matter how good your decorating efforts, they will never give the effect you wish if lighting is wrong for the scene. Halloween is dark and scary. Build old-looking tombstones out of Styrofoam blocks, paint them gray and streak with black paint, and place in your yard. You can buy mini strobe lights for about $12.00 that will give a great lighting effect. Also available is fog making machines that gives a high visual effect. Lighting should be placed above and below for high impact. Make good use of black lights for even higher appeal.
Utilize Sound
Creepy sounds are great for Halloween atmosphere. Once purchased, you always have them. Better yet, download the many free .wav files available online. I found a site called I Love Wavs that had many good sound effects, from cackling witches to rattling chains.
Trick Or Treat!
Halloween night brings out trick-or-treaters. Give them a special thrill by dipping treats from a fake casket. Place a pan of warm water inside and add dry ice. This makes a great fog effect. Use special lighting and spider webs from a can to add ambience.
Halloween is a fun time of the year for everyone. Because of the many special effects used at Halloween, be very careful to avoid harm to the little trick-or-treaters that come to your door.
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