Fun Family-friendly Decor Ideas for Halloween

Autumn isn’t just the season for new knitwear and complaining about the weather. Once the nights start drawing in, many people’s thoughts turn to Halloween, with bright pumpkins and black bat wings appearing on supermarket shelves.

Lots of us find Halloween irresistible and want to bring as much spookiness into our homes as possible. For those of us trying to avoid single-use plastics, however, decorating for halloween can be a trying time.

Halloween decorations should be horrifying for all the right reasons 

The good news is that you can get your home Halloween ready without filling it with plastic junk that’s as tacky and disposable as a 1980’s horror flick. 

If you’re looking for alternatives to fake spider webs (1) and black tinsel, then you’ve come to the right place, because we’ve got some brilliant eco-friendly Halloween decor ideas.

Go old school and carve some pumpkins

It’s nature’s very own Halloween decoration, right? Nothing says autumn and spooky season like a pumpkin or two outside your front door. It’s amazing what eye-catching effects you can get with a little bit of imagination. Search on Pinterest for some ideas and get carving! You could array pumpkins and squashes of different sizes and colours to really add interest to your porch, your hallway and, well, wherever you like.

Once November 1 rolls around, you can either turn your pumpkins into soup or remove the candles and leave them in your garden for birds and other wildlife. 

If you leave your pumpkins out as food for wildlife, place them in a tree or on a higher surface so hedgehogs can’t reach them (2) as the fibre can upset their stomachs and cause dangerous dehydration.

Make or buy a Halloween wreath

A well-made Halloween wreath could last you for years and if you use naturally-sourced items like pinecones and twigs, for example, you’re earning extra eco points. 

Even if you’re not the crafty type, many retailers offer wreaths made of durable materials like fabrics or metal, so you can use and reuse yours as often as you like.

Horrific heirlooms

As Halloween is becoming increasingly popular in the UK, it’s time to recognise that it’s not going away any time soon and that it needs a more durable medium than throwaway plastic vampire fangs (3).

It’s always good to take a mindful approach when it comes to seasonal decor so another option is to start collecting bat bunting and scary crockery that you really love and can use for years and then pass down to your children.

Make some cardboard gravestones

An easy but very effective Halloween garden decoration is a set of gravestones made from old cardboard boxes. Simply cut out some gravestone shapes, paint them grey and add some silly inscriptions and streaks of green paint for mould and lichen. 

To set them up, you tape or glue garden stakes to the backs before pushing them into your lawn or flowerbeds - preferably at odd angles for an extra creepy touch.

Easy sheet ghosts

Any white fabric will do for these hanging decorations, as long as you don’t need it for anything important on November 1st! 

Scrunch up some old newspaper into a ball or oval shape to make the head and place it in the middle of the fabric, before securing it with a ribbon or a rubber band. Draw on some eyes and then sew or glue on a loop so you can hang your sprite from your trees or in your windows. 

Aim to use Halloween decorations that will either biodegrade safely or that you can use the next year and even the year after, even if you made them yourself. 

Citations and References

(1) My London. ‘Londoners Warned about Halloween Decoration Sold in Asda and Tesco that Can Harm Birds.’ 2022. Web. www.mylondon.news/whats-on/shopping/londoners-warned-halloween-decoration-sold-25362643

(2) British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). ‘Halloween Warning of Threat Pumpkins Pose to Hedgehogs.’ 2022. Web. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-63426864

(3) The Guardian. ‘Scariest Thing about Halloween is Plastic Waste, Say Charities.’ 2019. Web. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-63426864