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Halloween
Decorating - Bits & Pieces
Below are an
assortment of miscellaneous ideas and tips for Halloween
decorations that we call bits and pieces.
Halloween
Tree
 One
of the best Halloween decorations you can erect inside your
house is a spooky looking Halloween tree! It
really adds a festive mood to your home and can look hauntingly beautiful!
It can be any size from a small tabletop decoration, to
a full size haunted tree. Your Halloween tree can be
store-bought or
homemade and there are lots and lots of creepy things that can be
used as tree decorations and ornaments.
Some store
bought tree's come pre-lit with mini-lights, or you can
decorate your homemade tree with strings of lights or
paint it with glow-in-the-dark paint and illuminate it
with a black light.
For
examples of Halloween Tree's, visit Halloween Online's
Halloween Decorations
section.
Spooky Lamps
 There are quite a few things you can do to turn a
regular lamp into an eerie illumination decoration.
Lampshade Toppers
The "Halloween Gala Lampshade Topper" made
by
Heritage Lace, is a
beautiful Halloween decoration that can add a really spooky accent
to your lampshades. The unique design incorporates many Halloween symbols such as
bats and skulls and includes a gothic style fringe at the
bottom.
Measuring sixty inches wide by twenty-two inches
high, it can also be used as a
window valance, door swag, mantle scarf or lampshade topper.
Fringe can be trimmed to the desired length for just about
any Halloween project.
Light Bulbs
 Temporarily
replacing the bulbs in some of your household lamps with colored
bulbs like the Feit Compact Fluorescent Party Light
bulbs is a great way to change the atmosphere in a room
from normal to spooky. These bulbs come in a variety of
colors including blue, green, orange and black light.
You can
also buy flicker bulbs with a standard size screw-in
base that will fit most household lamps sockets. These 3watt specialty bulbs give the impression of
a flickering candle flame and work well for regular
lamps, a candelabra or even a chandelier. Flicker bulbs
should be considered a special effect, not actual
lighting, as they produce very little useable light.
Lampshade Silhouettes
As extra Halloween decorations for our lamps, we create
spooky holiday silhouettes on the inside of our
lampshades by cutting out our favorite Halloween symbols
such as bats, spiders and pumpkins from black
construction paper and temporarily taping them to the
inside of our lampshades.
We start
by either drawing freehand or selecting from clipart,
one or more pictures we want to use. As an example, on
one lampshade we might use several bats of different
sizes or mix and match different types of pictures, i.e.
a bat, a spider and a pumpkin. The size of the
silhouettes depends on the size of the lampshade we are
using. In general, we make our silhouettes between two
and six inches in width.
Once you
have chosen you images, draw by hand or trace the image
onto a piece of black construction paper and carefully
cut it out with scissors. After unplugging the lamp,
remove the shade and tape the silhouettes onto the
inside of the shade using clear tape.
Safety Issues -
Construction paper can catch
on fire if it gets hot enough. Since all light bulbs
produce heat, so we only use low wattage florescent
bulbs in the lamp for this effect and only in a
large lampshade where there will be more space
between the bulb and the inside of the shade where
the paper cut-outs will be.
Shorted Out
Lights
Simulating the effect of a
shorted-out lamp or even a whole room full of lamps can be an eerie and unsettling
visage. One way we've found to safely accomplish this is by using an "Artificial Pumpkin Light" from
PumpkinLight.com. These are intended as an alternative to using
real candles to illuminate Jack O' Lanterns, but they have many other uses. They
are battery powered and flicker like
a candle using three bright yellow LED Light Bulbs.
To simulate a shorted-out lamp,
we like to use lamps that look old. Start by unplugging
the lamp you intend to use as a Halloween prop. It is extremely important that
the lamp be unplugged and remain unplugged during the entire time that
it is being used as a prop to avoid the possible electrocution
and the possibility of fire. We highly suggest that you coil the cord up and
secure it with a twist-tie, then attach a tag to the cord that states,
"DO NOT PLUG IN!".
Next, remove the lamp shade
from the lamp and then unscrew and remove the light bulb from the
lamps light bulb socket and set it aside in a safe place. Now, place an "Artificial Candle Pumpkin Light"
between the lamp's metal harp with the Pumpkin Light
facing down and attach with tape. Be sure to use enough tape
so that the Pumpkin Light won't fall out of the harp later. Replace the lamp shade and
switch on the Pumpkin Light. This effect looks best in a
dimly lit room.
Halloween
Night Lights
There are number of Halloween design night lights on the
market.
Halloween
Holiday Projectors
These allow you to project a symbol onto a wall.
Autumn Aroma
 Often neglected, creating aromatic scents of the
Halloween season is a
wonderful way to make your home smell wonderful and greet your visitors.
You can buy
seasonally scented potpourri or make your own. Most arts and craft
stores carry all the basics you will need. The basic
ingredients include flowers and leaves, essential oils,
spices and herbs and a fixative. The essential oils or
spices are used to create the particular scent you want.
Scented
candles are another great way to add pleasing
autumn scents to your home in October. Pumpkin Pie, Apple Spice and
Cinnamon are all great choices for the season.
Gonesh Holiday Tradition
Incense Sticks
comes in Halloween scents such as Ghostly Glow
(Pumpkin/Spice) and Spooky Brew (Apple Cider) to fill
your home with wonderful scents of the season. Make sure
that the ashes fall on a fireproof surface, and keep
burning incense sticks and cones away from flammable
materials such as papers, drapes, etc. Never leave
burning incense or candles unsupervised!
Bits & Pieces - Page 2
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