So you went to Spirit Halloween, Home Depot, Lowes, and a few other places and spent enough on talking skeletons, twitching zombies and cackling witches to make your financial adviser scream. What'll you do
with all this stuff?
"My first tip is to choose your "flavor" of Halloween, since there are so many options," says Britta Peterson, who writes in Eerie Elegance, a magazine and blog devoted to Halloween. "Do you want cute, spooky, elegant, scary, gory, or truly terrifying?"
"Start with something you genuinely love, like a horror franchise, a classic creature, a specific film, rather than grabbing whatever's on the shelf," says Miranda Enzor, editor of Spooky Little Halloween, a website and magazine.
"A yard built around one strong idea is always more memorable than one with a lot of Halloween stuff scattered around it," she says.
First: Commit to a theme
"The same principle that makes a great Halloween party makes a great Halloween yard – commit to a theme and let every decision flow from it," Enzor says.
"You don't need to spend a lot to pull this off. You need intention," she says. "That's the thing that separates a decorated yard from an actual experience."
Examples include:
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In a sense, your yard is your stage. You want passers-by to take notice.
"Think about your space the way you'd think about a party room," Enzor says. "Your street view is your invitation. It has to make someone stop and look."
"Your yard is where the story lives. It's your main visual payoff," she says. "By the time someone is standing on your porch, they should feel like they've walked into something special."
Next: Divide the yard into zones
You can adapt and modify ideas from theatrical set design and divide the space into zones. Consider what you’d see from:
Now: What goes where?
Using a haunted graveyard motif as an example, you could place decorations something like this.
Don't forget color
"Your color palette is your editing tool. Pick two or three colors and use them as a filter for everything," Enzor says.
"A yard that commits to black, orange, and bone white looks designed. The same decorations in five different colors just looks like a lot of stuff."
Finally: Be scary, but be safe
Make sure your yard is free of actual dangers. You don’t want anyone getting hurt.
A simple guide is to keep decorations from becoming obstacles. Make a clear path to the door that keeps visitors away from tripping hazards. Ensure that decorations won't be knocked down by wind.
Make sure there’s enough light for walking. You can use downward-facing lights to illuminate the path without distracting from decorations.
Secure any electrical cords to your decorations and eliminate tripping hazards. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to:
- Put away tools, garden hoses, and stray toys.
- Sweep up steps and walkways.
- Clear away fallen leaves.
Last word: Don't use candles or open flames
To prevent fires, use battery-powered lights or glow sticks instead of candles or lanterns for your decorations and jack-o'-lanterns.
An average of 835 home fires were started by decorations each year from 2020-2024, according to the National Fire Protection Association.
The fires caused "an annual average of 3 civilian fire deaths, 29 civilian fire injuries, and $18 million in direct property damage," the NFPA says.
How popular are Halloween decorations?
Candy, decorations and costumes are the top purchases of Halloween shoppers, according to the National Retail Federation's annual Halloween survey.
Consumers are expected to spend $13.5 billion on Halloween this year, the survey reports. Shoppers will spend about $4.1 billion on candy, $4.4 billion on costumes, and $4.3 billion on decorations.
"It's easy to go overboard with spending, especially when so many stores have Halloween decorations to buy," Peterson says.
You can start small, then add "new items each year to decorate a new area," she says. It's "the smart & budget-friendly way to build a larger display over time."
But whatever decorations you get, "don't forget to consider where you will store them before the next Halloween!" Peterson says.
Source: USA TODAY Network reporting and research; eerieelegance.blogspot.com; spookylittlehalloween.com; U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission; National Fire Protection Association; National Retail Federation; hsi.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How to scary-stage your yard for maximum Halloween fright
