By: Asherra

As a full fledged, black eyeliner wearing, JTHM reading, coffin purse toting Goth, I understand the significance that All Hallows Eve holds for the Gothic community. Goth’s are known for their love of the spooky, impeccable grasp of vintage noir, and no holds barred Halloween parties. However, Goth’s are NOT known for having an over abundance of money. In fact, most of us are downright broke.

Make your house look Halloween chic without breaking into granny’s jewelry box and hocking some of those diamonds you know the old bag has stashed in there somewhere. Here are a few tips that you can employ for making your house look spook-tastic and not cheese-tacular.

• First things first. Where is the party? Is it at your house/ apartment? Is it in a public place? Outside? Inside? Address the location of your party. If your going to be throwing an outside party you’re going to have a hard time making the location look like a Victorian Drawing room. If it’s inside, you might not be able to give your living room that special ‘grave yard’ look that it requires. Just make sure that you can pull off your decorating theme within the space that you have.
• You don’t have to redo your entire living room, but remove those non essential things that just don’t go with your theme. Small pictures, posters, knick-knacks that are cluttered throughout the room and extra furniture should be removed. Think of it this way, you’re going to have lots of people at your house drinking… you probably don’t want them bumping into grandpa’s vase on the mantel. This makes your party space all the more open and conducive to people socializing and roaming about. This goes for backyards too. If you have a pile of old junk in the corner, this might be that little added boost to get that stuff cleaned out. Now, if that old stuff happens to flow with the theme… then by all means… use it!
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  Most people on a budget get hand-me-downs. The couch from your brother’s old apartment, your mom’s coffee table, etc. If this is the case, unless you’re one lucky little goth, they aren’t that nice shade of black-black that you so desire. Enter Wal-mart, Wal-mart is your friend. You should give it a hug. Wal-mart is AWESOME for cheap stuff. So is Big Lots, Sav-On, K-Mart, even try looking for stuff at thrift stores. Look for a nice black (or dreary color of your choice) sofa cover. These things are awesome for dolling up furniture that your just too broke to get rid of. Even a regular flat sheet can be used to cover up furniture. Unless you’re trying to cover a leather sofa or chair, you can use straight pins to hold the covering fabric in place.
• For tables of various sizes, you can always get some cheap fabric and use them as table clothes. To make a table runner, just size a piece of fabric to the length of your table and then, using an iron, press the raw edges of the fabric under so that they don’t show. You can also use a hot glue gun to tack on some cool trim or fake bugs.
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  Along with covering your chair, you can also cover your pillows simply by finding some cheap and acceptably Halloweenie fabric (make sure it goes with your theme!) and sewing up a pillow cover. If you can’t sew, staple! Just measure the dimensions of the pillow, add a few inches for hem and the shape of the pillow and cut out two pieces of that size. If you don’t know the first thing about sewing, then here, let me introduce you. Always err on the side of making it too big, rather than ‘right the first time’. You can always make something smaller but you can almost NEVER make it big again. After you have the two pieces cut out place them with the right sides together (i.e. the front of the fabric together and the back facing out) and staple. Sew/ staple 3 of the four sides together. Turn the pillow cover right side out and slide the pillow in. After that fold the last edge in so you have a nice finish and sew/ staple it closed. Voila! If you’re craftier, you can hot glue on some little buttons or some ribbon to make it go along with your theme.
• One thing that (for me at least) always ruins someone’s efforts at decorating is the ceiling. The whole room could be masterfully decorated and look exactly like Dante’s version of Hell… flaming poo and everything…but if I look up and there is a big old white pop-corn ceiling there it sort of takes away from the whole effect. Designers note: Look at things on a whole instead of the minutia. In other words… details are nothing if the whole area doesn’t look right on a general sense. Use garbage bags, extra fabric, or anything else that you can think of to cover the ceiling. Using nails hang the fabric or opened up garbage bags, attaching it in various points around the room. Depending on your theme, let the fabric droop a little to give it some texture.
• Want Fog for an eerie look but don’t have the money for a fog machine? Take empty soda cans and about half way up the can start punching holes in the aluminum with a nail. Then from your local grocery store (Food-4-Less usually sells it) go buy some dry ice. You may have to cut the top of the can open a little more to put the ice in. Fill it about half to three quarters of the way with dry ice and then fill it less than half way with water. Using some string, securely hang the cans in discrete locations around the room. The more you hang, the more fog there will be.
• Black lights are a fun and cheap way to spook up a room. You can find them at Home Depot, Spencers Gifts, and sometimes Target and Wal-Mart. Replace light bulbs in your existing fixtures with black lights. Make sure that there is something white or black light luminescent for it to reflect off of. Also try using different colored bulbs like red or green juxtaposed with the black lights for interesting lighting effects.