October is in full swing and Halloween is just around the corner. If your dorm has been feeling frighteningly dull, it’s not too late to spook it up. So dust off your witch hat and follow these 5 simple and mostly DIY tips to make your room a little more ghoul friendly.
Pumpkin Painting
Carving pumpkins isn’t exactly the easiest or cleanest thing to do while living on campus. Instead, pick up a pumpkin, real or fake, some painting materials and paint away. Painting reduces the amount of mess, keeps your real pumpkins fresh longer and allows a greater amount of creativity and self-expression. From classic Jack-o-Lantern faces to trendy sayings like “Boo Felicia” or “Don’t Be a Basic Witch”, with paint, your design options are endless.
Image via Allison Guest
Spiderwebs
Whether you use the prepackaged cotton webs from the store or trace them out with yarn, a classic and easy Halloween decoration staple is fake spider webs. Webs could be placed in the corners of your room, over desk chairs or on the outside of your door to help make your living space feel a little more spooky.
Pumpkin or leaf garlands
This is a simple and fun craft for you and your roommate that pretty much only requires string, tape and construction paper. Cut out various pumpkin or leaf shapes in whatever color scheme you prefer (or use white paper and color them in) then attach them to the string and hang around your room. For more pizazz, glitter can be added to the designs to help add some sparkle around your room. These garlands could also stay up and double as Thanksgiving decor!
Bats
Similar to the garlands, with construction paper you can cut out bat shapes. Simply use black paper to draw and cut out the shape, then bend the wings a little to simulate that the bats are flying, and arrange them (with wall safe adhesives like sticky tack or command strips) on the wall to look like a colony of bats flying in the night.
Candy
Candy can double as both a sweet treat and decor. Simply fill glass jars with candy so you can see them or find a more Halloween themed containers like a cauldron or classic pumpkin head. Cute, functional and delicious.
Image via Style Motivation
Bonus ideas: throw blankets or pillows with Halloween designs or sayings, themed mugs if you drink coffee or tea in your room or themed wall hangings. Another fun idea could be to get everyone in your hall to get candy and place buckets outside their rooms to simulate trick or treating.