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Sugar & Charm
The entire neighborhood stops at your house on October 31. To ensure your home makes a lasting impression, you'll need to fix up the front porch and yard with festive products and easy DIYs that scream Halloween. Whether you decide to incorporate Halloween wreaths and cute window clings or go the creepier route with skeletons and moving spiders, we have you covered with plenty of ideas. Try even just one, and your home's seasonal look will be taken to the next level.
Listen to our new haunted house podcast, Dark House, to get in the spooky spirit while you decorate.
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Set Out Witch Shoes
Creep out your neighbors by leaving a pair of witch shoes on your front porch. Make it a little cuter (but still eerie!) by creating a sign that reads: Free flying lessons.
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Create a Scary Pumpkin Skeleton
This Halloween display encompasses tons of scary things. Not only does it look like the Grim Reaper and a dementor from Harry Potter, but it has a creepy pumpkin head and skeleton hands that are chained. Oh, and it looks like it's floating.
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Keep It Simple
For an easy, budget-friendly option, simply bring a broom onto your front porch. Here, designer Tom Scherer leaned an antique-looking broom near the door. It's both functional for quick maintenance sweeps and a fun nod to Halloween.
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Display Window Clings
Window clings can make your home look festive all year long, and they're especially useful come Halloween. The best part? You can actually make them yourself. Get the tutorial from Lia Griffith.
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IvysWoodCreations
Make Skeletons Rise Out of the Ground
If you can't get your hands on a 12-foot skeleton this Halloween, go for this smaller wood one that looks like it's coming out of the lawn to wave hello.
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Stack Real Pumpkins
While browsing your nearest pumpkin patch, give yourself a fun mission: Find a few pumpkins in various sizes that you can easily stack and place on your porch.
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Show Off Ceramic Jack-o'-Lanterns
Or if you don't like how real pumpkins can turn out to be a huge mess, show off one or a few ceramic jack-o'-lanterns.
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Hang a Wreath on the Wall
For some unexpected placement, hang a festive fall wreath on the exterior wall of your home. In this cozy space, mini pumpkins, cauldron-shaped planters, and ghost motifs add subtle Halloween flair.
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Cover Your Door
Whether you use a tarp featuring a creepy skull with red eyes or opt for paper with your very own Halloween-inspired drawing on it, covering your door with a decorative image can easily make the first festive impression you're after.
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Grandin Road
Incorporate Creepy Hands Holding Lanterns
Forgo regular lanterns for these ones hung on creepy hands. Place them around your front door or on a fence for major spooky vibes.
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Stack Bales of Hay
Sugar & Charm set up the ultimate outdoor Halloween buffet by using cobweb-covered hay as the table. Then, hang some string lights, surround the spread with pumpkins, add a Halloween-inspired bouquet, and call it a day.
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Display a Coffin
There's nothing scarier than a coffin with a skeleton peeking out of it. Add some scary music, and you've created an incredibly frightful scene.
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Have a Sense of Humor
Jennifer Perkins got creative with some pool noodles, a rusty old shopping cart, and a pair of black pointy-toed boots. This DIY Halloween porch decor is the perfect balance between funny and spooky, and even better, it just requires a little resourcefulness.
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Add a "Street Sign"
Line the steps on your front porch with pumpkins (paint one of them black to bring some darkness into the mix), and then make a mini Halloween-themed "street sign" to put in a pot of plants.
See more from Emily Henderson.
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Set the Table
Have an outdoor Halloween dinner party? A black-and-white striped tablecloth adds contemporary playfulness to the mood. Then, glue little ants to your napkin rings to be freaky but not too freaky.
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Hang DIY Ghosts on the Porch
Haunting, huh? These lacy creeps are probably the chicest a ghost has ever looked. Bonus: They're super easy to make. Get the tutorial at A Beautiful Mess, and then hang them either inside or out!
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Hand Out Candy Creatively
You may not have a giant candelabra on hand, but you probably have some summer lanterns (and you can always just use smaller candelabras). Refresh them for Halloween by filling them up with candy and placing them on top of faux spiderwebs.
See more at Sugar and Charm.
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Oriental Trading
Add a Light-Up Black Bat Wreath
This creepy-chic bat wreath also lights up with a spooky orange glow, perfect for livening up your front door.
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Main Content
Mark Your Path With Spooky Lanterns
Purple spider lanterns are basically the perfect glam-meets-scary combination. Bonus: This one comes in a set with an orange lantern featuring a spooky graveyard scene.
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Try a Shimmering Bats Projector
Give your entire porch an eerie glow with this projector light. It'll look like bats are swarming the place.
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Add a Talking Eyeball Doorbell
All who approach your home will be greeted by this spooky talking doorbell, complete with a light-up eye.
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KAILEDI
Hang Pumpkin String Lights
You can never go wrong with light-up pumpkins—especially a bunch of mini ones.
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Welcome Trick-or-Treaters with a Spider Web Doormat
An on-theme Halloween doormat, like this spiderweb option, adds an extra fun touch to your front door.
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Recesky
Try Spider String Lights
Speaking of spiders, hang these creepy-crawly tarantula-shaped string lights for a fun effect.
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Walmart
Spin a Giant Light-Up Spiderweb
Or just turn your whole yard into a giant spider's web with this 23-foot rope light.
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Line Up a Few Jack-O-Lantern Pathway Markers
Trick-or-treaters will be delighted to follow these glowing jack-o-lantern pathway markers all the way to your door to get their candy.
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Set Up a Candy Bucket
If you aren't going to be home (or don't want to answer the door) on Halloween night, fill a pail up with candy and put on top a bale of hay. Add a skeleton and some pumpkins and you're ready for trick-or-treaters!
See more at Sugar and Charm.
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Try a Pumpkin Topiary
Stack craft pumpkins on top of each other and fill with twinkle lights for an unexpected, but seriously fun, topiary.
Get the tutorial at DIY Candy.
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Work in Some Floating Pumpkins
Make pumpkin lanterns out of paper maché and hang them on white string so it looks like they're floating. Light them up with battery-operated tea lights.
See more at Sugar and Charm.
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Put Up a Moving Spider
A fury, shaking spider at the corner of your door will surely give anyone who passes a fright.
Sienna Livermore Commerce Editor Sienna Livermore is a commerce editor at Hearst covering best-selling products, home items, fashion, beauty, and things you just can't live without.
Brittney Morgan Market Editor, House Beautiful Brittney Morgan is a noted land mermaid and a Virgo with a penchant for crafts, red lipstick, and buying way too many throw pillows.
Kelly Allen Associate Editor Kelly Allen is the current Associate Editor at House Beautiful, where she covers design, pop culture, and travel for digital and the print magazine.