Make your home a Memphis Halloween Home

Want to decorate your Memphis home for Halloween without sinking fangs into your bank account and sucking it dry? Look for Halloween décor that doesn’t make you shriek with sticker shock. The best thing about decorating for Halloween is that it is supposed to look sloppy. I mean, have you ever seen a neatly dressed haunted mansion or organized abandoned graveyard? Here are some creative, low cost ideas for decorating your haunted Memphis mansion.

• Decorate your door.

Wrap white paper streamers or white packing tape around your front door to create a mummified entrance. You can even add creepy eyes for an extra spooky feel.

• Hang some haunted portraits.

Do a Google search for “old oil painting portrait” and find semi-creepy portraits that will look frightening in the right lighting and environment. These pictures are simple to blow up and print out and don’t worry if the image gets blurry or slightly distorted, it will add to the haunted effect. You can paste the portraits to cardboard and create frames to decorate in order to make the pictures look more real.

• Hang a ghost from the trees or make them play.

Blow up a balloon, place a white cloth or fitted sheet on top, and tie at the bottom of the balloon to create a neck. Use black paint to make eyes and a spooky mouth and then hang your ghost to a tree by grabbing the far ends at the bottom of the sheet and attaching them to branches, creating the illusion that the ghost is flying or floating.

You can also take five yard sticks, stick them in the ground in a circle, tape balloons to the tops as heads, and drape large, see-through, white trash bags over each balloon head. Create a neck by tying another trash bag around the bottom of the balloon and leave the rest draping. Finally, wrap another trash bag around the base of the ghosts (like a chest) and use the slack to make arms, tying all of the arms together as if the ghosts are playing ring-around-the-rosy.

• Zombie trees.

Go outside and find fallen tree branches with as many appendages as possible so that it looks like a mini tree. Stick the branches into buckets and fill them with dirt so that they stay upright. Spray paint the tree limbs black and decorate with cobwebs and spiders. You can also turn a few into Halloween Christmas trees by hanging ornaments of eyeballs, fingers, or whatever else you find scary.

• Creative shadows.

Instead of using old clothes stuffed and draped on a lawn chair outside like every other house, use those same clothes for something a little more creative and a lot more spooky. Tack clothes to the walls of your house in front of windows and leave a backlight on in order to make it look like shadows in the window. You can even buy a red light bulb for a scarier, dramatic effect. Trick-or-treaters might be too afraid to approach but you’ll be sure to have the scariest house on the block.

Memphis is home to LOTS of haunted houses, so if you move to Memphis you will want to make a spooky impression on your new neighbors. Follow these fun, simple tips on how to create a low-budget haunted home for your family and friends to enjoy!