How to Decorate Your Yard for Halloween

Co-authored by Amy Guerrero and Hannah Madden

Last Updated: March 20, 2023 References

Halloween is the spookiest holiday of the year. It’s always fun to be the talk of your neighborhood for your decorations. Whether you want to buy them or make them yourself, you can decorate your yard pretty easily. Start by transforming your front door to set the mood. Then, add scary decorations, like a skeleton, or fun ones, such as orange hanging lights, around your yard to complete the look.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Decorating Your Front Door

1
Make a monster on your door out of paper plates and streamers. Tape 2 white paper plates to the middle of your front door. Add 2 circles of large black construction paper to the plates to make pupils. Use white masking tape to create a scary mouth by making a straight line and adding blocks of teeth with tape. Add 2 lines of tape for eyebrows and streamers on top for the monster’s hair.^{[1]
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- This is a fun activity to do with your kids!
2
Wrap your front door in toilet paper for a mummy effect. Grab a roll of toilet paper and wrap a strand around the front of your door. Tape the pieces in the back so that they stay. Leave some gaps in between the layers of toilet paper so you can still see your door. Criss cross the papers at different angles for a better mummy effect. Add 2 black circles made of construction paper in the middle of the door to look like eyes peering out.^{[2]
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Tip: If you live in a rainy climate and your front door gets wet, this may not be a great decoration for you. Wet toilet paper tends to clump up and create a mess. Try using scraps of white fabric instead.

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3
Cut out candy corn for a cute decoration. If you love the candy part of Halloween, you can celebrate that by putting up fake candy corn all over your door. Cut some large triangles out of dark orange construction paper. Use yellow acrylic paint to make a stripe on the middle of the triangle and white acrylic paint to cover the top of the triangle. Wait for the paint to dry and then attach your candy corn to your door with masking tape.^{[3]
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- This decoration looks great if you have a brightly colored door.
4
Add a spooky wreath for a decorative way to celebrate. If you aren’t a huge fan of spooky decorations, try hanging up a wreath that has small pumpkins in it or a few bats and spiders. You can purchase a Halloween wreath from most craft supply stores or use a hot glue gun and some small fake spiders and bats to spice up an old one you already have.^{[4]
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- Wreaths are a super low maintenance way to decorate for any holiday.
5
Spell out “Trick or Treat” on your door to advertise your candy stash. If you really want the kids in the neighborhood to know that they should come to your house on Halloween night, cut out large letters from black construction paper that say “Trick or Treat.” Use 1 sheet of paper for each letter so that they are readable. Arrange them on your door with masking tape so that kids can see them from the street.^{[5]
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- If you have a dark-colored door, use white construction paper instead.
6
Spread cobwebs over an embroidery hoop for a spooky wreath. Grab a 12 in (30 cm) wooden embroidery hoop and paint the outside black with acrylic paint. Close up the top of the hoop as tight as it can go. Spread some fake cobwebs over the hoop and wrap them around the outside so that they stay. Place a few small fake spiders in the webbing and tie a black ribbon to the top of the hoop to hang it on your front door.^{[6]
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- You can purchase embroidery hoops at most craft supply stores.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Setting up Scary Decorations

1
Set carved pumpkins in front of your door. Halloween isn’t complete without a few Jack O’ Lanterns staring you down. Carve a couple of pumpkins so that they make scary faces and put them on your front stoop or in the entryway of your home. Set candles in each pumpkin to light when it gets dark.^{[7]
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- Paint your pumpkins black with acrylic paint to make them look even more sinister.
- Another great idea, if you don't have the necessary skills to carve a pumpkin safely, is to print out some designs and pin them to your pumpkins.
- You could also use decoupage to apply designs to your pumpkins, making them really unique and standing out in the crowd.
2
Paint white gourds with skeleton faces for an added spook. Gourds, or small pumpkins, are festive but not super scary on their own. Paint a few small gourds white with acrylic paint and wait for them to dry. Use black paint or a black permanent marker to draw on blocky teeth, a triangle nose, and circular eyes. Set these around your yard as dismembered skeleton heads.^{[8]
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- You can find gourds at most grocery or farm supply stores in the fall.
3
Cut bats out of black construction and tape them around your yard. Draw out a simple outline of a bat onto cardstock to use as a stencil. Use sharp scissors to cut as many bats as you want out of black construction paper. Tape these to your front door, your garage, or even your trees.^{[9]
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- You can hang construction paper bats from your trees by hole punching the top of them and tying fishing wire through them.
4
Spread fake cobwebs on your trees so that they look infested. Fake cobwebs are a white, felt-like material that you can spread out over your yard. It looks great on trees that have little to no leaves left. Spread out some fake cobwebs on your trees and over your grass to make it seem like the spiders have taken over.^{[10]
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- You can purchase some fake plastic spiders and set them in the cobwebs for an added effect.
5
Add a fake skeleton to your grass to make a counterfeit graveyard. Nothing says Halloween more than a skeleton poking out of the ground. Get a skeleton in pieces and lay the head, arms, and legs on the ground to make it look like you have a body buried there.^{[11]
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Tip: Place a fake gravestone above its head for an even more believable decoration.
6
Set up a motion-activated decoration for an extra scare. If you want to spook all of the kids in your neighborhood as they get their candy, purchase a decoration that is motion-activated to move whenever someone walks by. This could be a human-like figure, a large spider, or even a hand in a bowl of candy. Make sure it isn’t too scary, or you might seriously frighten some little kids.^{[12]
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- Most home goods stores sell motion-activated decorations around Halloween time.
7
Spread some fake crows and spiders around your yard for simplicity. Halloween is all about spooky animals. Play into this by purchasing some fake spooky flying critters and spiders and putting them in your trees and shrubs. From far away, people might not even be able to tell that they’re fake.^{[13]
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- You can buy some realistic-looking animals from most party supply stores.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Keeping Your Decorations Fun

1
Set out whole, uncarved pumpkins on your front stoop. Pumpkins automatically make you think of Halloween even if they aren’t carved. To keep your decorations sweet and simple, arrange a few uncarved pumpkins on your front porch or stoop. This decoration involves little work while brightening up your yard.^{[14]
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- You can buy pumpkins from a pumpkin patch in the fall.
2
Set out hay bales for a fall themed yard. Hay bales are a great way to set up your candy bowl or a few pumpkins while sticking with an autumn theme. Arrange your hay bales near your front door for a nice addition to your yard.^{[15]
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- You can find hay bales at most farm supply stores.
3
Spell out “Trick or Treat” in small pumpkins. Instead of carving a few spooky faces on your pumpkins, freshen up your yard by hollowing out 12 small pumpkins and carving the letters “Trick or Treat” one by one. Set these up in order on your front lawn as a fun, festive message.^{[16]
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Tip: If you don’t want to carve each pumpkin, you can also paint each letter on with black acrylic paint.
4
Light up your yard with orange hanging lights. Christmas lights always add a bit of festivity, and you can do the same with Halloween by adding some orange lights. Hang them up around your front stoop area or put them in your trees to give some nice Halloween ambiance to your yard.^{[17]
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- You can buy small orange lights to keep it simple, or up the ante with some larger ones.
- You can also purchase lights that are in spooky shapes, like spiders, ghosts, or bats.