Trick or treat! That ghostly time of the year is back.
Once again, we get to savour eerie yet scrumptious Halloween treats, groove to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” all night long, and dress up in ways that would be considered inappropriate during any other time of year.
You may already have a costume picked out (and we know five of you reading this right now will be dressed as Deadpool this year) but Halloween would be incomplete without some spooky decoration! To help you turn your respectable home or office into a creepy den of horrors, we’ve curated a few scare-worthy decorative ideas.
Pumpkins
What’s Halloween without pumpkins? While you probably won’t have a lot of luck finding the stereotypical variety of giant orange squash in local markets, you can still have some fun carving out the scariest face you can dream up into any locally grown variety of squash or gourd. If you’re set on the giant pumpkin for the sake of authenticity, be sure to get one from your local grocer before the price skyrockets. The procedure here is pretty much the same – slice open the top, scoop out the seeds and pulp, let the whole thing dry out, then take a carving knife to it.
Source: unsplash.com
Bloody fabrics
While blood trails are a necessary feature in any house of horrors, you may want to use an analog of real blood – for purely logistical reasons. All you need is a couple of plain white fabrics of any kind (the cleaner, the better for stark contrast) a tub of red paint, a paintbrush, and some imagination. Using the paintbrush, cast some arterial spray with the ‘blood’ on your fabric. Once you’re done, drape it over your furniture to give your home an eerie feel and the scary aesthetics of a fresh crime scene.
CzipLee Books and Stationery, over on Jalan Telawi, has one of the Klang Valley’s most comprehensive collections of oil and acrylic paints. But you really only need one shade of red, and you could get that from literally any art supply or hardware store.
Source: istockphoto.com
Create your own spell book
If you ever thought of discarding your old books, think again! These books are useful for adding an aged and ghostly touch to your Halloween décor. You just need your creativity and simple craft materials like acrylic paint, pulled cotton balls as spider webs, and some of your own spells. Stack those ancient tomes and decorate them with a candle or two, add a glass of dyed water to act as blood and you’ll be sure to spook your guests!
If you’re short on creative juices, you could get a generic spell generated here, turn everyday speech into mythical incantations here, or dig up a spell from the Potterverse over here.
ehow.com
Tombstones
No need to hunt down a stonemason in the Yellow Pages, or have an awkward conversation with an undertaker, you could potentially craft a tombstone using relatively inexpensive materials such as plywood and some chalkboard paint. Apply a couple of coats of the carbon-rich paint to get a deep, dark stain, then get started on writing out a pseudonym, a year of death, some memorable last words – and perhaps even a gruesome cause of death.
If you’re worried about accidentally naming, and pulling a “Death Note” on a real person, try out this random eulogy generator instead.
rogueengineer.com
Realistic-looking pests
The easiest scare to elicit is perhaps the one that taps into the primal brain’s fear of death and the associated imagery of carrion-eating pests. Simply download templates of mice, rats, cockroaches, or other denizens of the dark from here. Print them out, paint them black, and stick them literally everywhere for a guaranteed scare overload.
Source: womansday.com
