Over the Top Halloween Decor

I have this friend, let’s call her Libby...because most people do...because it’s her name lol. Every year she throws an amazing Halloween party where we come dressed up, we have amazing food, then cackle and craft with our fellow witches. I look forward to it every year and love seeing what she does with decor in her home. One year it was a haunted circus theme, one year it was Disney’s Haunted Mansion. One year we came in to see that her entire living room had been transformed with netting and strips of fabric hanging down from her ceiling. So many different textures and accessories. She used burlap, lace, hanging bats, bed sheets etc. I couldn’t stop staring at it. It was amazing!!! I asked her if she could teach me how to do it and being the gracious person that she is, she emphatically said YES and we planned a work day. Before she came over, there was a list of supplies I was to go and get. Here’s what I bought and what you’ll need to get the same look:

• Poultry netting (this is the one I got)

• Fabric cut into strips (be creative here)

• String or yarn to tie netting to chairs

• Open hooks to hang netting (this is what we bought)

• Zip ties (if needed)

The netting:

We bought this poultry netting from Home Depot and I was amazed at how cheap it was going to be to get enough for my living room, indoor AND outdoor entry ways! I took all four corners and used the string to tie them to chairs. You’ll need a lot of room to be able to pull the chairs far away enough from each other to loop your strips of fabric over and under. 

The fabric:

You can get super creative here. I went looking for sheets at second hand stores and yard sales. I didn’t limit myself to color though. I was either looking for black, the perfect shade of purple or super light sheets so that I could dye them any color I wanted. I used RIT dye from Walmart to do that and just followed the instructions on the box. Burlap, lace, ribbon, rope, hanging candles, bats or mini skeletons would also be super cool. If you use rope you can take either hot glue or spray insulation foam. You can then paint it black or green or red. The sky really is the limit here and I can’t wait to see what YOU do (be sure to tag me so I can see).

Here's a video showing what you do after you cut your strips of fabric (or enlist your family to help cut them LOL)

To attach these to our wall, because they can get a little heavy with all the fabric, we used these hooks from Home Depot. We leave the hooks in year round and with our 18' ceilings, you can't see them at all throughout the year. You can always paint them the color of your walls as well to make them disappear.

Kevin got up on our super long ladder and attached one side, then took it to the other side. It's a little bit tricky getting under all the netting and fabric to do this so BE CAREFUL and go slowly. In the picture below you can see another blue ladder just out of the frame. I got up on that and would hold the other end of the netting while Kev was hooking them up so it took some weight off him. Hope that made sense =).

Here are the two shorter ones I cut for the front entry way. It's seriously SO cool to walk under!

Now if you have a light fixture in the middle of your ceiling....things can get interesting =). We

hung one side and then pulled it taught, measuring where we would need to cut the netting. We made sure to cut only as far as we needed to, put it around the chain of our chandelier then re attached it with zip ties.

The finishing detail would be to add string lights to each swoop to add some ambiance to the room. I typically don't like having too many house lights on during the party and these cover up those lights a lot anyway. The ball string lights are PeRfEcT!!! Here's a pic one of my guests took last year. It's dark but you can still kind of see the cool effect.

Here's the front porch last year. I'll be doing a second one this year to give it a more full effect. To attach these Libby used office brads and clipped them to the soffit of the ceiling. GENIUS I TELL YOU!!!!!!

Hope you guys enjoy this and for SURE do it at your home too! be sure to send me pics and tag me on my channels.