Halloween Decorating Ideas for Outdoors: 2024 Best Picks

24.10.2024

Are you looking for Halloween decorating ideas for outdoors? We’ve gathered some of the best ideas to turn your garden, patio or front yard into a playful Halloween scene!

front door decorated for Halloween

Halloween decorating ideas for outdoors: From pumpkins to skeletons

We all know and love the ghosts, pumpkins, witches, bats, and skeletons that appear every year at the end of October, yet we often want something novel and exciting too… Decoration for Halloween is all about finding your inner child and putting a creative spin on familiar characters and decorations. Here are some of the best ideas we’ve gathered for 2024.

Heirloom pumpkins

Heirloom pumpkins and gourds are a great way to add character to your entryway or garden. Interesting shapes, sizes and colours add oodles of charm to your Halloween set up. Why not use them to craft some interesting decorations like a spooky family of jack-o-lanterns or simply display them as an elegant arrangement with some flowers and festive elements.

Creative carving

Get creative with your pumpkins and carve some entertaining jack-o-lanterns. You’re guaranteed plenty of giggles while coming up with silly and unique expressions. Carving these up with friends or family is a great way to spend quality time together while creating lasting memories.

Scarecrows

Make a scarecrow using an old raincoat, pieces of wood or branches and a pumpkin for the head. You can make your scarecrows as adorable or as petrifying as you like, depending on the style of your decorations. To kick things up a notch, you can add lighting on the ground below the scarecrow to illuminate it at night. Make sure to use lights and extension cord intended for outdoor use.

Haunted garden room

If you have a shed or a garden room, it can make for a perfect haunted house, mad scientist laboratory or witch’s den. Cover surfaces with dark fabric or use minimal effect lighting to create a spooky atmosphere.  Use old jars and fill them with colored water and floating ‘specimens’. If you have a fog machine turn it on to cover the floor in fog.

Whether you’re creating a haunted garden room or just need a space to store your growing collection of seasonal decorations, a well-designed garden house can be your year-round solution.

See how Summerhouse24 customers are using theirs by clicking here.

Greenhouse of horrors

A greenhouse can make for an eerie focal point in your garden. You can create quite the effect by adding a flickering green light in the greenhouse and other Halloween decorations. If you’re thinking of adding anything with lightweight like paper bats or a ghost made out of cheesecloth, you can use an extension cord made for outdoor use and use it to power a small fan to make the decorations move. Coupled with some spooky lighting, it will make for a spectacular sight!

Ghosts

Use old fabric from a second-hand store, old sheets or even old light-colored clothes to make some simple sheet ghosts. To make bigger ghosts you can easily use a vegetable support cage or something similar for the body and a balloon, polyfill or other lightweight material that can form a head shape. Use wire for different gestures and shapes. To make your ghost glow, place some string lights inside the body. For an airy, wispy look try making your ghosts out of cheesecloth.

To make tiny ghosts you need small pieces of fabric, filling for the head and some string. This is a great craft to undertake with the kids. Once you’ve made enough small ghosts, you can string them together to form bunting, attach them to a branch or whimsically position them in unexpected or fun places.

Hang decorations on trees

Ghosts, skeletons, and other spooky characters are perfect for hanging on tree branches. Ghost-shaped decorations will sway in the wind and look like they are flying, adding to the spooky atmosphere. Trees are also perfect for hanging up a gigantic spider web in between them.

Tombstones

If you’re thinking of setting up a spooky graveyard, make some tombstones from old scrap wood, insulation boards or even cardboard, if it’s not raining. You can make your tombstones as simple or as detailed as you like.

Skeletons

Skeleton decorations are a Halloween favorite. You can use them in all sizes and come up with fun scenes or characters like ‘Scary Poppins’, ‘Frightda Kahlo’ or ‘Elon Dusk’. The last one is perfect if you drive a Tesla – seat a skeleton in the car and add some battery-powered spooky lighting. 

If you have hobbies like cycling, painting or paddleboarding, you can use your your equipment as props when displaying your skeleton engaging in humorous activities.

Witch’s cauldron

Set up a big witch’s cauldron in the middle of your garden or in front of your house. For support, you’ll need three long sticks or branches. Make a tripod by attaching them at the top with rope or string. You can make your cauldron out of a pumpkin by cutting off the top and scooping out the seeds. Once the cauldron is ready, make two holes about an inch from the edge of the pumpkin and use string to hang the pumpkin from the middle of the tripod.

Use what you have

One of the easiest ways to decorate for Halloween is by using what you already have. Use a ladder as a display for your decor or seat an undead visitor on your garden furniture. Even gardening tools can be used – splatter fake blood on them or use them to build scarecrows and other monsterly creatures. Find some inspirational photos and look around in your garden to see what you could use!

Hopefully you now have plenty of ideas on how to decorate outdoors for Halloween. The best way to go about it is just to have fun! Halloween is the perfect holiday to enjoy creative ideas, sillyness and good company.