Walkway Decor

• A spooky, craft-filled pathway right up to your front door sets the stage for a Halloween fright when it's time to trick-or-treat. Halloween lanterns light the way to the front door. For a playful option, hollow out a series of gourds and use a sharp nail to create pinholes in whimsical patterns through the gourds skin. A battery-operated LED candle sends light through the holes to illuminate a path. If you prefer a more gory look, create blood-splattered lanterns by coating milk jugs or old oil lamps in fake blood or red paint. The eerie red light cast from an interior light will welcome and frighten visitors.
  
  

Pumpkin Alternatives

• Carved pumpkins are a classic piece of Halloween lawn decor, but crafty homeowners add a twist to the traditional for a surprising treat. Instead of the standard round gourd, paint pumpkin-like objects around your house with orange and black paint to recreate the timeless Jack-o-Lantern look without the threat of rot. Upturned terra cotta planters, ceramic bowls or old lampshades are all suitable materials for making "found pumpkins." Another option is to rethink how a pumpkin might be used or displayed. A hollowed pumpkin painted black doubles as a witch's cauldron when it suspended from rope or chain from a sturdy branch. Smaller pumpkins wrapped with plastic vines replace the wilted flowers in your existing planters for Halloween twist.
  
  

Spooks and Ghosts

• Turn your lawn into an ethereal underworld with spooky lawn crafts depicting classic Halloween ghouls. Large sheets of cheesecloth are suitable for creating ghosts. Stretch lengths of nylon over a wire frame made with coat hangers and bent to look like the head and shoulders of a ghost. Once the frame is draped with the cheesecloth, it will resemble an eerie ghostly figure. Another option is to create a gaggle of ghosts using just white sheets and several standard garden stakes. Nail two stakes together so that they form a cross. A Styrofoam ball on top of the cross serves as the ghost's head, and when you place a sheet over the cross, the horizontal stake creates arms. The stake ghosts are especially convenient because they can be placed firmly into your lawn.
  
  

Front Lawn Graveyard

• A graveyard scheme in your front yard leaves space for a variety of Halloween lawn crafts. Polystyrene insulation is a sturdy and inexpensive material for creating gravestones. Simply trace the tombstone pattern onto the sheet and then cut the forms with a saw. Gray spray paint gives the appearance of stone, and black paint allows you to etch epitaphs onto the final products. After your arrange your tombs around piles of autumn leaves, add black shadow silhouettes using the leftover insulation. Ravens, black cats, bats or witches in profile add darkness and gloom to your lawn graveyard. For added spookiness, stretch cotton batting over the figures to resemble cobwebs.