Halloween How-To: DIY Haunted House Tips!
Oct. 14, 2010— -- You don't have to break the bank to create a spooky Halloween home that your family and trick or treaters will love! Check out these easy instructions from DIY expert Michele Beschen for making your own scary decorations this year.
Black birds, ravens and crows get a lot of love during Halloween season, as they should, because you can have a lot of fun decorating with these dark-feathered friends.
Step 1: Vintage Owls
Hit the thrift stores and score as many bird knickknacks as you can find. Owls were popular in the 1960s and 70s so there are always some for sale. To transform the birds for Halloween night, break out the black spray paint. Create definition by taping off certain areas so they are not solid black. Cover in spray paint. Don't worry about coating it solid black because having it sparse in areas adds to the creepiness. Scatter and display around the house.
Step 2: Making Ratty Blackbirds, Ravens or Crows
Visit dollar discount stores to stock up on ravens, black birds or crows. Or you can use birds left over from ornaments or floral arrangements and spray paint them black. Rough them up by taking scraps of black and grey fabric, and gluing them to the bird over the feathers. Glue buttons over the eyes.
Step 3: Displaying Your Birds
Take inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock and "The Birds" for your displays. Score a few mannequin heads from hairdressing schools. Tease the hair to create a ratty look and put a few of your birds in it. Display the head on a candleholder. Visit a tailor for old mannequin stand. Dress in black clothing and wrap a black scarf around the neck. Spray paint a bird's nest black and sticky-tack to the top of the neck. Take one of your birds and perch it on the shoulder. You could also score bird cages and fill them with a few of your birds and place them around the house. Or put some tree branches into a vase or a Christmas tree holder, cover it in fake spider webbing, and perch some of your birds around the limbs.
DIY Haunted House: Disembodied Parts
Severed feet, hands, and heads help put the horror in Halloween. But you don't need to go down a bloody gory road with your decorating efforts to add some tricks and treats.
Step 1: Disembodied Parts Inside the House
Celebrate the season with vintage body parts. You can start a nice collection of glass hands and heads that you can acquire at thrift stores and flea markets. Old dolls are also a great place to score different body parts. An effortless way for you to up the creep factor of all these parts is to simply put them under glass – like a cheese platter, glass jars, or a glass cloche.
Step 2: Disembodied Parts in the Front Yard
Start with cheap plastic hands and feet and customize them so they look like they're just coming out of the ground. Take a few pieces of gauzy fabric, like cheesecloth and dip them in stiffening liquid or white glue. Drape them right over your body parts, covering everything except for the fingers or toes. Paint wood stain on top of the fabric to create a dirty, decaying look. Paint the fingers or toes yellow. Acrylic paint is best because it lasts outdoors. Next, paint the nails black. To display, go out and plant them around the yard.
Step 3: Bringing Body Parts to Life
A fun and unexpected surprise for your Halloween trick or treaters is to have a disembodied hand pop out of the candy bowl:
DIY Haunted House: Eerie Exteriors
Looking to haunt the outside of your house this year? Create an abandoned condemned building look, with some eerie exteriors.
Step 1: Create Boards for Windows and Doors:
Step 2: Decorate Boards
Be creative with embellishment -- some fun ideas:
Step 3: Attach Boards to Home Exteriors
Cut industrial strength Velcro into 4 squares, and attach one to each corner of the back of your boards.
Note: The Velcro will leave a little residue behind on your doors. Use citrus cleaner to easily remove.
Take the backing off the Velcro and stick to the door or window frame.
Step 4: Create Tattered Curtains for Windows
Staple gauzy material, such as cheesecloth, to your newly created, boarded up windows. Or you can just trap the material in a closed window.
Rip material into shreds or put some holes in itFill a bowl with coffee or tea – dip a rag into it and stain the gauzy material to make it look dirty.
Step 5: Finish off the Look
Some other ideas to make it look like your home is abandoned:
DIY Haunted House: Creepy Portrait Wall
You know how when you're in a haunted house and you always feel like someone is watching you? Create that same spooky feeling in your own home with a creepy portrait wall.
Step 1: Find Artwork
It all starts with what you have hanging on the wall. Start building a collection of faces -- including framed family photos, vintage portraits, or paintings from thrift stores and flea markets. If you want your wall to have more dimension, find a mounted animal head.
Step 2: Embellish the Eyes
Dress up the eyes with dramatic costume lashes. They have enough adhesive on them that you don't need to add anything else. You can also use buttons, sequins, or stuffed animal eyes to creepify the eyes. Stick to the portrait with removable adhesive, like sticky-tack.
Step 3: Finishing DetailsCreate shapes with black construction paper or Halloween decorative paper. Some fun ideas include making masks, hats, bats or spiders, and adhering with sticky-tack or double-sided tape. To add dimension, spray paint fake flowers a dark ominous color, and stick to the portrait. You could also hang fake spider webbing along the frame.
Step 4: Hanging on the Wall
How you group and arrange the pictures can be just as important as the decorating and embellishing. On one wall, group together the animals, on another, the people. Leave a few pictures unaltered and then scatter them amidst the creepy portrait wall so the spooky ones are like little hidden surprises. To make them seem like they've been on the wall for years, hang a few of them crooked.
DIY Haunted House: Tombstones
Halloween celebrates all things deadly and creatures of the night. Why not capture all that creepiness by turning your front yard into a grave yard?
Step 1: Create the Body of the Tombstones
For easy construction, create tombstones out of salvaged lumber. No need to make a lot of cuts to the wood, let the natural shape of the wood create the shape of the tombstone. Connect pieces of wood. Using a hammer and nail or a power drill and screws, attach slats to the backside to hold it all together. Step 2: Embellish the Tombstones
Have some fun creating different styles/looks for each Tombstone. Some ideas:
Step 3: Paint on Tombstone
You can use spray paint or artist acrylics. Create lettering with stencils or paint freehand. Paint on epitaphs, such as "R.I.P" or "I Told You I Was Sick"Paint on names of the deceased, such as "Ima Goner" or "Ben Dismembered"
Step 4: Installing in Front Yard
To create a base, so your tombstone can stand on its own: add another board to the bottom of your tombstone using a power drill and screws.To plant your tombstone into the ground: using a power drill, attach two stakes to the outside of your tombstone.Or, just hammer a stake into the lawn and lean your tombstone against it.
Happy Halloween!
CLICK HERE to return to the "Good Morning America" Web site.
DIY expert Michele Beschen is the host and creator of how-to television programs with an eco-friendly focus, including her newest series, "B. Organic," currently airing on public broadcasting stations. Her unique approach to the do it yourself life can also be seen in her monthly columns with Scripps Howard News Service, contributions to "Do It Yourself Magazine," and her DVD collection.