While there are many reasons one might love the Halloween holiday, a good chunk of Halloween revelers enjoy the frightfulness surrounding the notion. They seek thrills in the form of haunted houses or scary movies throughout this time of year. This Halloween, gift your loved ones with the thrills that they seek by transforming your home into your very own haunted house for a special Halloween celebration! Adorn your home with eerie Halloween decorations that will surely make your guests scream. Or, if you don't want to go through the hassle of hosting a Halloween party, decorate only the front entrance of your home to frighten trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. With the help of Windy City Novelties' Halloween decorations, your home can easily be converted into a house of terror in no time! Here are a few ideas on how to turn your lovely, welcoming home into a fear-provoking haunted nightmare. 

First decide on your haunted house theme. 

Before you start creating your haunted house, you must first decide on a central theme in order to know what type of decorations to purchase. Perhaps you would like to use the more traditional haunted mansion theme, with dark hallways, massive spider webs and dark shadowy figures lurking in the distance. Or maybe you would like to transform your home into an eerie haunted asylum with bloody handprints and remnants of former patients. Or, perhaps you know that some of your guests are truly terrified by clowns, so you make your party area a creepy carnival. However, if you would like to add a bit of variety to your haunted house, use a mixture of different themes! 

Decorate the outside of your home with outdoor Halloween decorations. 

You'll want the outside of your home to look as much like a haunted house as the inside of your home, so start by decorating this area first. Garnish your lawn with lawn stakes in the form of skeleton bones to make it appear as if skeletons are shooting out of the ground. You can also stick a few "Beware" and "Danger" lawn signs in your front yard to warn guests about what make be lurking inside the haunted house. 

"Board" up the front door(s) with more "Keep Out" signs in the form of cardboard cutouts. Easily stick these to your front door using sticky tack or painter's tape. Feel free to add some of these decorations to the front of your windows, as well. Or you can "decorate" your windows with bloody handprint window clings to make it seem like someone was trying to escape the haunted house. 

Finally, add fake spider webs wherever you can--place some on the front lawn, set them on top of the landscaping in the front of your home, cover your porch or stairwell with them, and hang them off of the front of your house. For an added effect, stick light up peeping eyes string lights inside of your bushes to make it look like creatures are hiding in them. 

Image via houzz.com

Decorate the inside of your home with scary Halloween decorations. 

Once your guests have entered the haunted house at their own will, lead them to the party area (or the rest of the haunted house) with a bloody footprint carpet runner or two. Adorn your hallway walls with more spider webs, bloody handprints, or ghost props. Add some lighting in the form of a black light, or create the illusion of floating candles by tying LED candles to fishing wire and hanging them from the ceiling around your party space. 

In one area of your party space, perhaps your bathroom, hang a bloody weapons garland, complimented by fake body parts on the floor and walls. Be sure to first place down white construction paper on the walls, so you can glue your decorations to it and splatter red paint to resemble blood. 

Image via stirizsisters.blogspot.com

Drape black gauze and more fake spider webs around your party area--wherever you feel you need to add more decorations. Don't forget to toss in a few fake spiders! You can even stick a few skeleton bones in your spider webs to mix it up. 

Decorate your dining area using black tableware. 

In your dining area, hang a few black chandelier decorations from the ceiling, especially above the dining/buffet table. Place a lace tablecloth over the table, while using real candlesticks as table centerpieces or decorations. You can stick the candles in regular candle holders, or spray paint several wine bottles black and use those as candlestick holders. Serve your guests snacks on black paper plates with matching napkins. Fill a cauldron with punch, or witches brew, and serve it to your guests in black paper cups. 

At Windy City Novelties, it’s our hope that this article inspires you to create a fun and unique party for your loved ones. For more helpful tips on organizing your event, email our dedicated party planning experts at [email protected]. You may also subscribe to our emails for weekly party planning ideas, featured products and more at https://www.windycitynovelties.com/customer/account/create/