Over the Top Home Decorations for Halloween

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Over the Top Home Decorations for Halloween

One of the many wonderful things about Halloween is that there are so many areas of making to explore, from costumes and props, to party decor and food, to full-on DIY house haunts. And when makers get the haunts bug, many of them get seriously bitten. We’ve run articles and projects over the years featuring a number of jaw-dropping, utterly crazed Halloween house decorations. Here are a few of our favorites.

Pirate Ship Crashing Through House

halloween-pirate-shipwreck-display-1This incredible Halloween yard display, featuring a full-sized pirate ghost ship wreck crashing through a house in Lorain, Ohio, certainly makes me timbers shiver…with admiration and awe.

Scary Ticket Booth

owcamwnq6dhf1ato Create this Scary Ticket Booth for Halloween (and other events) using little more than shipping pallets.

Asian Fortress Halloween House

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Take your next Halloween house to the next level by focusing on creativity rather than just creepy-tivity. With some basic woodworking skills, some free cardboard supplies, and a little bit of neighborly help, you can create an Asian fortress that will be the envy of every Kung Fu master.

Giant PVC Spider

bigassspiderCheck out this yard installation of a giant spider made from PVC pipe by a Florida maker named Spring Chicken (no, really!). And here is another PVC pipe spider build.

Crashed Cardboard X-Wing

x-wing-yard
What does a Star Wars fan do when there is a new movie pending (The Force Awakens), and Halloween is just around the corner? If you’re Christian Ackerman, you build a full-sized X-wing, complete with blinking lights and a cockpit that opens.

Alien Invasion

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Rows of preserved extraterrestrial cadavers recede into infinity, thanks to the “barbershop mirror” illusion, in John Russell’s amazingly detailed and elaborate Alien Invasion project from 2006.

Carve Your Own Tombstones

h_tombs_img_016The gateway drug to over the top home haunts is the Styrofoam tombstone graveyard. Here’s how to make your own.

Fire-Breathing Dragon

jvr6soonuug6xq1pThat’s just a 20′ tall, 40′ long Fire-Breathing Dragon on the front lawn. No biggie.

Halloween Outhouse Time Machine

YouTube player
YouTube player

Sam Seide certainly gets our vote for over the top Halloween decorating with his annual yard display featuring a magic mirror and a time-traveling out house. It’s really amazing to see how much time, energy, and passion some people put into Halloween projects. This is really driven home as you get the tour of the yard in the first video and then take a trip in the outhouse Halloween Time Machine in the second.

Haunted House Silhouettes

q3fmgvergpsfhnjoTurn your house into a giant haunted luminary using the instruction in this Haunted House Silhouettes project.

Laser-Triggered Fire-Breathing Pumpkin Prank

qjug3cwo1my2bzqeThis one looks a bit dangerous, a Laser-Triggered Fire-Breathing Pumpkin Prank that causes fire to belch from a pumpkin as you draw closer to it. If you build, definitely set it up so that no one can get too close to the pumpkin and the gout of flame doesn’t get near anything.

Skeleton on a Swing


Because, who can’t use an actuated Spooky Swinging Skeleton in their yard?

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Gareth Branwyn is a freelance writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor to Boing Boing, Wink Books, and Wink Fun. His free weekly-ish maker tips newsletter can be found at garstipsandtools.com.

View more articles by Gareth Branwyn
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