Tips for the spookiest Halloween decorations

With the summer coming to a close, you're sure to see a few Halloween shops popping up around your community.

It's never too early to start thinking about how you'll turn your home into a haunted house for the holiday. If you're new to a neighborhood, putting up a few spooky decorations is a great icebreaker for meeting your neighbors. Plus, it's an entertaining way to break in your new home.

While you're glad the home inspection didn't reveal any frightful details, Halloween is a time when it's a good thing that your house in the scariest one on the block. Here are some tips for creating an eerie abode:

Grab a flock of crows

If Edgar Allen Poe taught us anything, it's that ravens are creepy birds. To give passersby a fright, place a few faux crows outside of your house. You can stick them on a fence, railings and the porch if you have one. If you want to up the scary factor, place the plastic birds on bare branches.

Turn pumpkins into spiders

Although pumpkin carving is a staple of Halloween, there are other ways to play with your fruit - yep, pumpkins are fruit. Grab a permanent marker and draw a silly face on one side. You can also use googly eyes and felt cutouts for a three-dimensional face. Then, use sticks or similar items to create legs and press them into the sides of the pumpkin. Pipe cleaners work well if you're using small pumpkins.

Buy a Halloween-themed doormat

While this may not be the scariest decorating tip, it does add a little touch. Visit a local Halloween shop to find a doormat that fits your overall theme.

Get creative with lighting

Although All Hallows Eve is a spine-chilling evening of ghost, goblins and ghouls, you'll want to provide adequate light so trick or treaters and other passersby can see where they are going. Plus, you don't want all of your creative decorations to be hidden in the dark.

Find some ways to dress up the lighting around your home. String up Halloween-themed, purple and orange rope lights. Illuminate Jack-o-lanterns with LED tea candles that provide a brighter glow compared to a candle. These lights can also be placed in a hollow skull decoration. If you have outdoor fixtures such as a wall-mounted lamps or lamp posts, adorn them with bat silhouettes made from construction paper.

Dress up your windows

You can also use silhouettes in your windows. Grab some scissors, tape and large sheets of black paper. Cut out ghosts, witches and other creatures of the night to send a chill through the neighborhood. If you're not as handy with crafts, you can find premade silhouettes at the store.

Get innovative with spider webs

Many homeowners purchase fake cobwebs to drape over parts of their homes for Halloween. While this strategy is an effective, classic move, you can take things a step further. Add a few fake spiders to the web and wrap tennis balls in the webbing to create some spider eggs that will give a fright to all who see them.

Put your planters to use

Although autumn means colder temperatures that aren't favorable to your summer plants, their planters can be useful for your Halloween decor. Head to a Halloween shop and grab a few fake limbs - zombie, skeleton and witch limbs work fine - and stick them them in the dirt. When trick or treaters visits for sugary snacks, they'll cower in fear of the zombie hand reaching for them.