This Halloween, treat your trick-or-treaters to a spooktacular haunted house with a menacing jack-o-lantern, a wretched wreath of black roses, and skeletons doing a deadly dance on your lawn. Add a blood-curdling CD of Halloween sound effects. Then, if anyone dares to knock, give them a Kit Kat! They deserve it.
Trick for Treats
For a tasty treat when the candy runs out, spread cleaned pumpkin seeds on a cookie sheet and coat with buttery cooking spray. Sprinkle with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, salt, and sugar. Roast in a 300-degree oven for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. The salty-sweet seeds are done when they are golden brown. Spooky delicious!
Doorway of Doom
Set the stage for a night of fright by transforming your entry into a ghastly gateway. Change the address of your haunted mansion to 666 by stenciling and spray painting a plain doormat. Or hang a weathered sign over the front door that reads “Turn Back” in bloody red scrawl. Then greet your fearless friends with a thorny black rose wreath—just attach plastic roses to a wreath form and spray paint the whole thing black. Enter at your own risk!
The Bone Yard
This time of year, plastic skeletons are creeping out of their tombs and into stores everywhere. Don’t try to resist their kitschy ways. Buy a small cemetery’s worth! Paint them in fluorescent colors and swap out your porch light for a black light to make them glow. To add bone-chilling action, attach all the skeletons to the same string, clothesline-style, and tie one end to a tree and the other to your front door. Each time a trick-or-treater arrives, the skeletons will greet them with a cute little dance of death. They’ll do the Mash, the Monster Mash.
The Latest Interior Touches From Transylvania
1. Turn an easy chair into a threatening throne by perching a faux raven on the chair’s back. (Timid types will visit nevermore.)
2. Add a terrifying touch to your ceiling with a bevy of rubber bats. Capture that cave-like creepiness by hanging dozens of bats from your ceiling with fishing line. Simply batty!
3. Give your living room an undead makeover by covering your furniture with tattered gray sheets. The mummies will feel right at home.
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