Halloween creeps up on us all so quickly – it’s NEXT WEEK! If you’re throwing a Halloween party or get-together and you’ve left all your planning until the last minute, don’t worry. I’ve got a round-up of some of the best tips and easy advice to get some fantastic Halloween decorations and costumes.
If you look for last minute Halloween party ideas, you’re probably going to find a bunch of crafts and DIY to keep you up all night before the actual event. If this is your style, go for it, but I for one am lazy and need a good 8 hours sleep a night. There are a bunch of places around the UK where you can grab some Halloween decorations or costumes on the cheap and a lot of online retailers offer next day delivery so you won’t even have to leave your sofa!
Our first list covers Halloween decorations you should be able to buy if you have time for next day delivery or picking up from supermarkets, and if these aren’t enough then check out our 50 Halloween Decoration Ideas post for even more inspiration. But if you’re REALLY struggling for time, or you’re finding places are sold out already, our second list has a bunch of Halloween decorations you can get even if the Halloween sections in shops aren’t an option.
Contents
- 1 Last Minute Halloween Decorations You Can Buy
- 2 IF SHOPS ARE SOLD OUT OF HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS
- 2.1 Get Some Halloween Candles
- 2.2 Get Your Christmas Lights Out Early
- 2.3 Make Some Halloween Cups (Easy, Trust Me)
- 2.4 Red Food Colouring
- 2.5 Burn Some Incense
- 2.6 Bring Leaves From Outside Inside
- 2.7 Get A Black Halloween Table-Cloth
- 2.8 Put On A Halloween Horror Movie
- 2.9 Make a Halloween Horror Playlist
- 3 SEE MORE: 50 Halloween Decoration Ideas For 2014 >>
Last Minute Halloween Decorations You Can Buy
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Get A Pumpkin (Even If You Can’t Carve)
Are the places near you stocking pumpkins? Check all major supermarkets, and even corner shops like the Co-Op. If they are, grab a couple (3 all in different sizes would work the best). Then if you’re a master carver you can go ahead and make a thing of beauty. But if you’re like the rest of us who don’t know the first clue about carving pumpkins, and would probably have to sit down for hours watching Youtube and taking it agonizingly slowly, I have a better solution.
Just take off the tops, scoop out the insides, and dry them down with some paper towels. Do this as close to Halloween as you can (perfect for us procrastinators) so that they don’t start to rot. Then when you’re going to hold your Halloween party, fill your pumpkin bowls with sweets! Ones in wrappers of course, we don’t want everything tasting like pumpkin. And if you really don’t want anything touching the inside, you could either stuff the pumpkin first with paper towels or a bowl. Works a treat.
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String up some Halloween Fairy Lights or Bunting
BUT WHERE AM I GOING TO GET ANY HALLOWEEN FAIRY LIGHTS THIS CLOSE TO THE DAY?! First of all, check the supermarkets. Asda, Sainsburys, Tesco, Aldi and any others that you’re close to. They’ve been so on the ball this year with Halloween goodies, and they’ll all be flogging their stock closer to the day so you might even bag yourself a deal.
Be warned – supermarkets tend to run out of Halloween things quickly. In the event this happens, mosey on over to Amazon. Grab yourself some cheap orange Halloween fairy lights like these for just £9.99, and string them up. If you are the creative type but you just left yourself with hardly any time, try cutting out shapes like ghosts and black cat faces and pushing them onto the lights so that each pair make up the eyes. But the lights on their own will do!
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Halloween Window Stickers
Again, we’re assuming you have time for at least next day delivery here. The supermarkets are still a great idea (I’m basically saying drive to any shop near you and frantically check their Halloween section for anything right now), but you’ll probably find more selection over on Amazon. These Halloween Bloody Hands Window Stickers are £5.70 with next day delivery available. Perfect.
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Check Supermarkets By You, But Have A Backup Plan
I think by now you’ve got the message, but just in case you still feel like it’s not worth it I thought I’d make it it’s own point with an added tip. So you could drive to all the places by you and check their stock, that’s definitely a good idea and there almost certainly will be some things left over. They just might not be the best things.
But where do all physical stores flog their excess stock? Online of course! So why not try to do your weekly food shop online and add in some of the Halloween accessories? That way if your local store is sold out, you might still have a chance at getting the things you really want with the added bonus of having your food delivered. Result.
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Bake Some Spooky Treats
Ok ok, so this point does take a bit of effort. Attempt this one only if you actually enjoy baking. You can get some spooky Halloween cookie cutters from Amazon with next day delivery for only £3.99. Buy the ingredients, a little red food dye (for blood of course) and go wild. It’ll at least make your guests feel like you were more prepared than you actually ended up being…
IF SHOPS ARE SOLD OUT OF HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS
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Get Some Halloween Candles
No no no, I don’t mean try to find some Halloween themed candles. Just get any old candles. That’s it. That’s your one job right now. In the Asda Halloween section and they’re out of everything? Speed down to their home section and buy some candles from there. You’re just looking to create a spooky atmosphere now so literally any will do. Buy loads of their cheap ones if you have to and dot them around the room; your guests will come in and look around in awe of how prepared you were and how creepy your place is without all the lights on. I’m basically just trying to turn you into the worlds best liar by now.
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Get Your Christmas Lights Out Early
I know I’ve already mentioned fairy lights, but I absolutely loved this tip from CassieFairy; buy your Christmas lights early! Fairy lights can set the mood for Halloween, and if you get the right colours you’ll be able to reuse them for Christmas. Better yet, if you’ve already got some perfectly good fairy lights in your attic, get them down early and you won’t have to buy anything at all.
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Make Some Halloween Cups (Easy, Trust Me)
Right, get some paper cups. Preferably white ones, unless you can think up a way to do this with different coloured ones. Get a black permanent marker like a Sharpie. Now draw really simple ghost faces on each cup. This should take under 30 seconds per cup, don’t make them into a work of art. Go ahead and use these as drinks cups or fill them with treats for party guests, the choice is yours.
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Red Food Colouring
Get red food colouring, and put it on everything. Maybe not everything, but if you’re serving food it will definitely look more Halloween themed if it’s red, trust me. There’s a way to make fake blood with red food colouring as well, which will be incredibly useful if your costume requires it and you can’t find any anywhere. There are tons of tutorials online for how to do this, so Google it. I can’t be an expert in everything! And it’d be pretty weird if my expertise was fake blood…
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Burn Some Incense
Ok so you’ve got the spooky atmosphere from your Halloween candles already, that’s good. But incense is equally as spooky and much more unusual. Most homes have candles in Autumn, we even wrote about them in our Autumn Style Trends (Splurge Vs Steal) list – but not many homes have incense. Stand out! It looks a bit witch-crafty too right? At least I think so…
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Bring Leaves From Outside Inside
Please don’t make your living room into a giant leaf pile, that’s definitely not my advice. But if you’re decorating a table with the beautiful pumpkins you made earlier, maybe put them on a bed of different coloured leaves. This won’t only look spooky, it’ll look pretty Autumny too. If you’re putting your pumpkins outside your front door, then pile the leaves around them. Go on, pretend your artistic for an evening.
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Get A Black Halloween Table-Cloth
Or red, depending on your colour-scheme. If you’re decorating a table with candles and pumpkins, you can throw a black tablecloth across the middle of it to make it look complete. Lucky for you they’ll be in the home section of a supermarket so it doesn’t matter if their usual Halloween stock is sold out.
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Put On A Halloween Horror Movie
No one will even notice your lack of decorations if you’ve got a Halloween horror movie playing in the background! Get out the old DVDs, check online TV Guides to see if any spooky movies are on the night you have your party or just hook the TV up to Netflix and go crazy in their horror section. Sorted. I’d recommend something that’s not too distracting for your guests, so don’t skip straight to Hostel or one of the Saw movies. Try a classic unintentional scary movie like The Adams Family, The Labyrinth, Beetlejuice and pretty much any other Tim Burton movie.
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Make a Halloween Horror Playlist
If you don’t want to put a movie on in the background of your party I can completely understand. At least make the music creepy though. There are tons of premade horror playlists on Youtube, Spotify and iTunes, so have a look and pick out your favourites.
Hopefully this list has helped you, but if you have any tips of your own you’d like to share then let me know in the comments below, or over on Facebook or Twitter.
SEE MORE: 50 Halloween Decoration Ideas For 2014 >>
Photo Credits: JD Hancock, Kevin Dooley,Markus Grossalber
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