The Art of Halloween

Party planning, yard haunts, cocktails, costumes and the effects that sell a haunted house, for adults who take October seriously.

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Fresh for October

New Guides

All party guides All decor guides

A fortune teller booth outside a house at night, with skeletons in the chairs lit purple and blue

Decor

Automate Your Yard Haunt: Smart Plugs, Sensors, Timers and Which Smart Home Runs Them

What a smart plug can and can't switch in a Halloween display, what the makers' manuals rate outdoor plugs for, how to put fog and store animatronics on a schedule, which motion sensors survive a yard, and what Alexa, Google Home, Apple Home, SmartThings and Home Assistant each need to run it.

A single jack-o'-lantern with slanted eyes and a wide toothy grin glowing orange in a completely dark room

Decor

How to Carve and Light Foam Craft Pumpkins So They Last for Years

Why the hot knife Michaels suggests is the one tool the hot-wire maker rules out for polyurethane pumpkins, which mask covers carving dust, how to stay under Fun-Kins' 5-watt light ceiling, and how to paint cut foam without guessing.

Wisps of orange and red flame curling upward against a black background

Decor

Fake Fire Effects: Silk Flames, Flame Bulbs, LED Candles and Fire on Fabric

How silk-flame lights, flame bulbs, moving-wick LED candles and projected fire work, what their makers' manuals say about heat, clearance and outdoor use, and how to make fabric look like fire without making it a fire risk.

A wooden house at night with violet light glowing through its windows onto the siding

Decor

How to Hide and Weatherproof a Halloween Projector

Where to put a Halloween projector so nobody sees it and the weather can't reach it: the tilt and clearance limits in the Epson, Optoma and Nebula manuals, why a foam box can't touch the beam, dew nights, timers and cool-down, and what the warranties actually say.

A pile of fun-size Halloween candy on a black table, including Kit Kats, Whoppers, Reese's ghosts and tubes of Sixlets

Party Planning

Leftover Halloween Candy: How Long It Keeps, Where to Store It, What to Toss

How long chocolate, hard candy, gummies and candy corn keep, what the date on the wrapper means, storing and freezing the bowl remainder, baking it into cookies, keeping it from the dog, and what goes in the trash.

A small orange jack-o'-lantern lantern with cut-out triangle eyes and a jagged grin, set among dark green leaves

Decor

Vintage Halloween Blow Molds: History, Safe Lighting, Care and Display

Where the hollow plastic yard figure came from, why federal rules treat a lighted blow mold like a light string, why an LED C7 can glow dimmer than the bulb it replaces, and how sun, heat and cleaning age old plastic.

Browse by project

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Throwing a Party

Hosting & Trick-or-Treat
Invitations, budgets, safety, dinner parties, and how much candy the doorbell crowd will actually eat.
All 5 guides
Food & Drinks
Party menus, charcuterie, cocktails and mocktails, jello shots, and a punch that fogs without dry ice in the cup.
All 6 guides
Games & Activities
Grown-up party games, murder mysteries, scavenger hunts, and a photo booth guests will actually use.
All 5 guides
Costumes & Makeup
Adult costume ideas, safe makeup and fake blood, and running a costume contest people don’t argue about.
All 4 guides
Music & Movie Nights
Party playlists, the Halloween records worth owning, and hosting a horror movie night.
All 3 guides

Decorating the House

Yard Haunts, Porches & Pumpkins
Graveyards, posed skeletons, porches, jack-o’-lanterns, and keeping it all standing through October weather.
All 13 guides
Lighting, Fog & Effects
Colored light, blacklight, fog, lightning, and projection: the effects that make a house read as haunted.
All 11 guides
Props & Animatronics
Store animatronics worth buying, fixing the ones that quit, and DIY props and displays you build yourself.
All 8 guides
Indoor Rooms & Tablescapes
Room-by-room ideas for the inside of the house, from the front hallway to the bathroom and the dinner table.
All 4 guides

51 Free Printables · No Email Required

Print & Party

Invitations, bingo cards, potion labels, recipe cards, séance scripts, tombstones — every template is dark-mode by default with an ink-saving light variant for the home printer.