Halloween Party Decorations: GLOW IN THE DARK! Use glow sticks in lanterns, jars or any clear container you have around the house. Add leaves, moss or spiderwebs. Simple and cool!

Halloween Decorating! Halloween Chandelier! DEM RATTLIN' BONES HALLOWEEN CHANDELIER! Use existing chandelier (or make - styrofoam, wood, toy wagon wheel, etc) Hang Dollar Store skeleton necklaces from it!

Halloween Party Decorations: Buy masks at Dollar Store (I like glow in the dark ones) and put inside jars or lanterns. Place on stairs, patio, entry or group on dining table!

Tie name tags to jars and use as place settings at the dinner table or group several as a centerpiece for the table. Give as gifts or hold a contest. The person, while wearing the mask, who can eat a cupcake the fastest without getting any icing on the mask wins a prize! (And no cheating for those who eat "under" the mask! There's always a wiseguy in every bunch!) Lol!

Halloween Party Decorations: Can I buy you a drink? Use glow in the dark slime. Add roaches, fingers and glow in the dark sticks! Cheers!

Of course, you can nix the slime and add real cocktails...but this promises just as much fun! Caution: Be careful with slime as it looks like you can really drink it.

Halloween Party Decorations: "I Fall To Pieces Over You!" -Patsy Cline - MANNEQUIN BODY PARTS! Cut apart $1 masks and rubber creatures. Hot glue to body parts and paint!

Use body parts as a centerpiece. Put in a big tub on the dining table or hang parts from ceiling. Make a body part chandelier by tying them together with rope or chains. Tie to back of chairs covered in red paint spattered burlap. Get a plastic toy chainsaw and greet folks at the door a la Chainsaw Massacre style! Lol! (or put chainsaw in centerpiece!)

Decorate existing furniture/accessories. Grin and bear it! Crows nest! "Witch and Famous" and Bucky gets a witch hat! Simple! Impactful! Inexpensive!

DECORATING - EASY HALLOWEEN DECORATING and PARTY IDEAS!!

There are lots of ideas out there, but I wanted to share creative ideas that make for a dramatic impression or an unconventional little twist yet require minimal effort, materials and talent...all under $10! (*mannequin parts vary in price) Look at page 1 and 2 of my blog for all of the photo ideas. Happy Haunting! Pamela Miltenberger pamelamiltenberger@comcast.net

MANNEQUIN PARTS - I did this for a gory scene in the theatrical production of REEFER MADNESS. Use old or broken mannequin body parts found at junk stores. Spray paint arms and legs a ghostly gray or drip red paint onto parts, use rubber spiders and other Dollar Store bugs and hot glue to ends of arms and various areas. Paint the rubber "tendons" and guts using red, black, blue, gray, etc... Arrange as a centerpiece for dinner table or hang from chairs draped in mesh or bloodied burlap for a ghastly gory look!

FAKE BODY PART CAKE - I'm making fake cakes right now for Main Street Theater's production of CAKEWALK. I made "cakes" out of styrofoam. Create the icing by using acrylic caulk mixed with gray or red acrylic paint or whatever color you choose. Ice the foam. Carefully push in Dollar Store, plastic, bloody hands or feet or doll parts (head, eyeballs, legs, etc...) from old Barbies or dolls found at Goodwill. Put the body parts poking out at various angles. You can even cut a slice out of the cake, paint, frost and put dolls arms and legs poking out of the slice you cut and the area of the cake that has been cut. FUN!!!

CHANDELIERS - Hang Dollar Store skeleton necklaces from your existing chandelier or light fixtures. (Make your own chandelier out of a toy wagon wheel or strofoam or wood and spray paint it.) Add some cobwebs, candles and crows! Perfect ambience to watch THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN!

LANTERNS AND JARS - Use Dollar Store masks (the glow in the dark kind preferably) and put inside various see through containers like lanterns. Put the lanterns all around the house, patio, entry way, on stairs or group them all together on your dining room table. Use as name tags for guests who are dining or use for take home gifts! Use old vitamin bottles or coke bottles and make your own poisons. Put gels inside or fingers or colored water. Make a label via computer or the old fashioned way with paper and glue. Have fun with the labels. Label can read - Take 1 pill daily if seeing 1 ghost. 2 doses = 2 ghosts. 3 or more ghosts = RUN!

SPIDERS, ROACHES, AND FINGERS, OH MY - Just fill your guests' dinner plates or glasses with Dollar store spiders. Fill some with cobwebs. Or put roaches and fingers in glasses of glow in the dark slime. Add a glow stick! Cheers!

CRYSTAL BALLS - Spray paint large round ornaments (plastic is best) or foam balls to look like crystal balls. Use metallic, glow in the dark, iridescent or glitter paint. Arrange several on table, on top of candlestick holders or in jars, cauldrons or funky bowls you already have at home.

BOOKS - Wrap books in spider webs! Drip red paint or spray paint various ghostly colors on old books or butcher paper or newspaper. Add words to covers: WITCHES GOLDEN BOOK OF SPELLS, HERBAL REMEDIES FOR MUMMIES/DUMMIES, BOO BEGONE, etc...

MIRRORS - Dollar Store mirrors or Goodwill mirrors can be sprayed with hairspray for a ghostly look. Experiment by spraying only edges and wrap spiderwebs around them. Group them for a dramatic Halloween effect!

PHOTO COPIES - Photo copy black and white or sepia pictures of your face and hands (fuzzier the better) on regular paper or colored paper, and frame using Goodwill frames. Wrap books. Make dinner place settings for your victims, er, guests with a facial clue to the coming treats...or tricks! Ex color only eyeballs of photocopy red to indicate eyeball pudding. Put pictures on window panes, in cauldrons or jars, under each witch hat using a backing like posterboard or cardboard or a For Sale sign, etc...

Sweet, wicked and cavity free! Jars of silly grins! Use your own jars and simply add moss with Dollar Store fake bloody hands, livers or hearts!

Halloween Decorations: SIT A SPELL! Hang witch hats on your dining room chairs and add lots of candles to the table. Simple!

Cover Dollar Store witch hats in mesh, muslin scraps, spiders, etc...
Prop your hat in unexpected places for a little bewitching touch.

Halloween Decorations: Chandeliers, cobwebs and crows - oh my! Hang several chandeliers, brooms or witch hats inside or outside for unexpected drama!

Halloween Decorating: "Whenever I see your smiling face, I have to smile myself because I love you!" -James Taylor

Halloween Decorations: Crows perched atop a witch hat, sign or chair covered in creepy cheesecloth and mesh!

Halloween Decorating: Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble! Cauldrons full of crows, hands, lights and dead trees!

Simple welcome - Bats in the belfry? ---or how about your entry? Simple - hang a pair of bats, put out some pumpkins and let the haunting begin!

For the birds... CROWS, that is! Inexpensive and fun dining room centerpiece: Spraypaint branches, add lots of crows! (work in progress photo).

Halloween Decorating - Crystal Balls - Use lg plastic Christmas ornaments or styrofoam balls - Paint using metallic, iridescent, glow-in-the-dark or glitter paint!

LET ME TELL YOUR FORTUNE! Put crystal balls in a cauldron or paint thrift store glass bowls various misty/spooky colors! Position bowls at different heights atop shoeboxes draped under mesh, burlap, spiderwebs. A HAPPY HALLOWEEN IS YOUR DESTINY!!!

Fake cakes - using fake gray icing and doll body parts! All you need is styrofoam, caulk, paint... and an imagination!

Cakes I fake baked for production of CAKEWALK. These are meant to look homemade by the aging mother. I cut some of the fake cakes so we can insert a real slice for the daughter to eat! Toxic non-caloric cake! Yum!