With longer nights and horror movie marathons on the horizon, it’s time to start prepping your space for Halloween. Bring the spirit of fright to your home with this collection of hauntingly creative DIY decorations.

Make a creepy door decor with nothing but a grapevine wreath, plastic snakes and wire. Black paint and lace trim add the finishing touches.

Atmosphere

Atmosphere is the term for the amorphous gas envelope surrounding a planet or other celestial body. Its figurative sense, derived from the Greek noun atmos “vapor, steam, odor” and the Latin sphaira, referring to a globe or terrestrial or planetary sphere, evolved in the mid-1600s.

Create an atmospheric Halloween smokehouse by filling the space with eerie lighting and themed decorations. Whether you’re hosting a family-friendly BBQ or booze-fueled Scarefest, these creepy touches will have guests on edge. Hanging bats, gnarled bushes and web-covered trees are easy-to-make and effective. Put flameless candles in your ghostly trees to set a creepy glow, and use a few tangled PVC pipes, a hot glue gun and orange string lights to make an eerie candle. Play spooky music to add to the mood.

Lighting

Adding lighting effects to the smokehouse is an easy way to transform it into a spooky hangout. Using a smoke machine or fogger, for instance, is a great way to add moody ambience to your event. Fog is ideal for creating an eerie ambiance, while smoke is better for highlighting specific effects.

Another fun option is to try out spooky smoking cocktails. Simply fill a graduated cylinder with water and drop in some dry ice for a bubbling mixture that looks as though it’s emitting smoke. This trick is perfect for Halloween parties or just to add some spooky flair to your drink.

Bone-Chilling Props

Create a spooky ambiance with this haunting ghost skull chain decoration. It’s perfect for an outdoor display, a spooky costume party or your haunted house. This skeleton-chain-themed decoration is easy to hang from anywhere.

Bring your spooky decor to life with this animatronic crouching bones prop that features a mutilated half torso that moves up and down while emitting a hellish moan. This animated corpse will scare your unsuspecting guests and add a macabre touch to any Halloween setting.

Make a spirited first impression at your door with this skeleton-on-stand decoration. Pose her with a treat-laden tray hot-glued to her skeletal arms, then elevate the scene with a stack of classic tales of terror like Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven. To keep skeletal figures secure, you can use fishing line, garden stakes or even lengths of rebar pushed through their rib cages and into the ground. Alternatively, they can be secured with zip ties. These props balance scares with family-friendly fun, so they can also be used for theme parks and theatrical productions.

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