Halloween Styling: 11 Creative Ideas for ANY Spooky Soirée

We’ve already featured a ton of inspiring Halloween parties from many creative & talented people, so I wanted to do a different sort of Halloween post myself… one that highlights several different DIY food & styling ideas that could be utilized in any Halloween celebration.

So, below you’ll find 11 such ideas – from Halloween food & drinks to decor. Whether you’re hosting a big party or just looking to make a festive Halloween snack at home, I hope you can have some fun with these! 👻

The Printables

My (customizable) Spell & Potions printables are available in Design Hero by HWTM!  Click here to check them out.

1. Creepy Potion Jars

It’s easy to make creepy “potion ingredients” from simple items and colored water. Here, cauliflower + black water = “Zombie Brains”, plastic snake + black water = “Snake Venom”, and sand = “Bone Dust”.  Add decorative labels and tint the water black to make the ingredients even creepier! I bought the apothecary jars at HomeGoods several years ago and this is probably the zillionth time they’ve been used… they are SUCH a great party staple to keep on hand.

2. Bat Bites

These little pesto-cheese creatures are adorable and so easy to make! Get the recipe here. I think the ingredients used in the recipe make this more of a grown-up treat, but you could follow this same styling method with sweet ingredients to make them kid-friendly. I’m thinking of something like a sweet cream cheese or cake ball mixture rolled in crushed Oreos with cookies and cinnamon chips or thin wafer cookies for the “wings”. :)

3. Printable Paper Details

If you’ve followed HWTM for a while, you probably know that paper details are my thing. 🥰  They are just such an easy way to add personality to any celebration!

I used our Spells and Potions collection in the purple/orange colorway for this shoot. Many of the pieces – including the banner – are editable using our online customizer!

4. “Freestanding” Skeleton

Make a fast, cheap, and high impact statement with a decorative paper skeleton that’s “freestanding” instead of stuck to the wall. I found this cool vintage looking skeleton on clearance at Michaels, then used glue dots and a dowel rod to prop him up on the table. I filled a coke bottle with sand to anchor the dowel rod “spine” + more glue dots to arrange and stretch out his arms and legs in specific ways on the table.

5. Salty Bones with Blood Dip

These “Salty Bones” are so easy to make using store-bought breadstick dough… and even more fun served with marinara “Blood Dip”! Use push pop containers to display them in a unique, outside-the-box way. Since each container only holds one breadstick, make sure to have a tray of extra “bones” nearby that guests (or family members) can grab as they please.

6. Tombstone Sandwiches

This is one of my favorite Halloween food ideas because it’s so easy & versatile! Cut finger sandwiches into tombstone shapes using a cookie cutter – or just by free-handing it like Sonny did here. Display the sandwiches on a kale “graveyard”.

I used a ziploc back with a tiny hole cut from one end to pipe “RIP” on top of the tombstones in mustard, which worked well for these Reduced-Fat Smoky Cheddar Tombstone sandwiches. You can switch up the piping ingredient depending on the recipe though – for example, use red jelly for PB&J “tombstones”!

7. Olive Spiders

If you REALLY want to creep someone out, toss an edible “Olive Spider” in their martini or salad! This recipe is very simple & easy to follow, but also a little tedious because of how tiny the rosemary “leg” pieces are – so grab a friend to help you make them or put on a good show to keep you company while you work.

8. Dangerous Drinks

Use creepy, cautionary Halloween stickers to dress up your drinks. The cool vintage looking “potion labels” I used here were also purchased on clearance at Michaels. Another super easy idea that always looks great is to hook plastic spider rings around the base of stemware. For the drink itself, serve a blood-red punch or cocktail!

9. Speared Eyeballs {Drink Garnish}

You know the “dangerous drinks” mentioned above? Well – they get even CREEPIER with a bloody “speared eyeball” garnish. GROSS – I know… but that’s the point! These are actually made from lychee fruit, raspberry jam, and a blueberry… so they taste a lot better than they look. ;) Use them in sweet cocktails or any fruit based punch.

10. Rotten Eyeballs

I’m realizing that eyeballs are really going through the wringer in this post. 😆 For an easy Halloween treat that’s also on the healthier side – serve black grapes in sugar free berry jello and dub them “Rotten Eyeballs”. This is a fun snack for special Halloween lunches too.

11. Witch Cauldron Garland

This easy & inexpensive DIY garland ended up being one of my very favorite elements of this shoot! I’ve had a bunch of these little plastic cauldrons sitting in my Halloween storage bins for a couple years (they were left over from a Harry Potter party a while back). You can always find them around Halloween time, but I’ve yet to actually use them for HALLOWEEN until now… LOL

I embellished each one with sequin trim then simply strung them on some twine. They all kind of slid to the middle at first, so I secured each handle with a little piece of twine to keep them in place, which worked like a charm! You could really have fun with the embellishments on this one… have plastic snakes or gummy frogs peeking out of each cauldron, rim them with “candy drips“, etc.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Hope you can use some of these tips! :)

P.S. Here are a few more tips from the shoot that weren’t covered above:

• Add height to your table with upside down wooden crates and mason jars wrapped in cheese cloth
• Add festive bling to jars, dishes, and frames with adhesive rhinestones
• Black cheesecloth is the perfect material for a cool Halloween table backdrop