CREATE YOUR BASE! With a little smart shopping it’s easy to generate an inexpensive design foundation that will enhance any Halloween style you choose to present. These basic materials are items we Trash Lassies ALWAYS have with us on-set to support and stretch whatever horror or suspense scene we might be dressing. Start building your own Halloween foundation by scouting your house, keep an eye out for clearance and deeply discounted specials, and shop your local yard sales and thrift stores. Keep these inexpensive articles specifically for Halloween so you can paint or stain to look old, or splatter with blood to kick up the gore. These simple supplies bring BIG decorating value yet require minimum storage! Most of these suggested items fold small or lie flat allowing for modest storage requirements. Add to your Halloween decorating chest year after year, and you will have a full TRASH LASSIE Halloween road box in no time!
When it comes to decorating we ARE MATERIAL GIRLS! Fabric is our greatest asset for grand-scale decorating on restrictive budgets. Use small fabric pieces to cover upside down pots or wood chunks to boost and lift small decorations. Drape medium size remnants over windows, chairs and tables. Use full bolts to cover walls or separate rooms to create a hunted house effect. With lots of pins and a little creativity fabric is you Halloween BFF.
For a fun effect go with geometric shapes in Halloween colors, for a festive feel use material with candy images. Go ghostly with patterns of skulls and webs, or pleasant and playful with bats, cats or rats. A few yards are all it takes to make your festive Halloween statement. Run material across the table as a table runner, place a few squares point to point, line your mantel, cover an end table or simply wrap around a pumpkin and tie with ribbon. A little goes a long way when it comes to festive Halloween fabric.
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Keep all your old white linens! Old white sheets, tablecloths and fabric scraps make great ghosts! Halloween is the ONE time it’s OK to have a few stains, marks or burns on the fabric. Simply turn inside out, add two eyes and a mouth and you have some great yard decorations.
Black is beautiful! The effects you can create with black fabric at Halloween is MAGICAL! Throughout the year collect ANY & ALL black fabric you find on sale; bolts to scraps, yards to pieces. Velvet to tulle, satin to duvetyn; all black fabric is great for creating a design base. Use it to camouflage areas of your house you don’t want to show. Drape over furniture to turn the whole room haunted, span on each side of the television to create a movie theatre feel, cascade across the room or fashion into funky costumes. Black fabric is movie making magic!
Candelabras and candle sticks are the perfect way to enhance every Halloween theme. Choose from elaborate and ornate, to simple and functional. Look for aged or antique candle sticks at thrift stores, yard sales and in discount bins. Lanterns are a great choice! They come in a variety of styles and colors and can safely sit among fabric and in the center of heavily decorated areas. Choose candles in colors to communicate your style, orange for a traditional Halloween theme, antique white for classic party style, or pure black for a full on horror effect!
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CANDLE CLUES For Halloween replace all your candles with black to achieve a gothic effect. A few hours before your party, light all candles then extinguish, this allows you to relight very quickly just before guests arrive. Always trim wick to ¼” from wax to reduce flame hazards. To make your candles last longer, cover with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for several hours prior to using. It really works!
Collect a few select items that will bring rich design style to your Halloween events for years to come. Look for timeless pieces that bring an interesting statement to your Halloween display. Antique books make a great pedestal, old fashioned black and white photographs and vintage artwork look fantastic placed in your household frames. Look for masks that will make a deadly impression. Large ornate frames and mirrors are excellent to hang on your wall in place of your every day pictures, or place flat on a table with serving dishes on top for an alluring table presentation.
HALLOWEEN HOSPITALITY Want to freak out the neighborhood and be a Good Samaritan at the same time? Play trick or treat roll reversal! Dress up in a costume so your neighbors will not know who you are. Start out with a giant bag of candy in hand. Go door to door just like other trick or treaters. Before they have a chance to give you candy, you take a few pieces from your stash and place in their bowl or hand. People will be shocked at this weird generosity from an unknown stranger.
If you are attending a party and want to thank the host, go into the bathroom to leave your thank you message. Wet the tip of your finger, (nothing nasty, just water) and write a little note on the mirror and let it dry; GREAT PARTY, THANKS FOR THE HOSPITALITY, the TRASH LASSIE BLOODY ALEXANDER ROCKED! Breath onto the mirror, or run hot water to generate steam and you will see your message. The next time your host is taking a shower they will be in for a nice surprise!
Black serving dishes, platters, plates, pedestals and props make the perfect palate for any Halloween party. Whether you are hosting a casual after school fun fest for the kids or a horror fright night for your friends, with black as your base you can achieve splendid style with minimal decorations. Go for a black on black table and any color you choose will jump out in vivid brilliance!
Flowers & leaves, berries & pods in colors of black, orange, red and gold are rich in style and handy for crafty table design. Pick up stray and discontinued stems for a song throughout the year. Use as festive accents to fresh flowers, intermix among a pumpkin stack or lay simple leaves on a plate and rest candles on top. One or two is all it takes to move your décor from simple to splendid!
