Autumn is almost here, and that means it’s almost time to disguise your children and send them out into the streets foraging for chocolates and sweets. Of course, Halloween is coming! Today, I’m going to show how to put together a spooky front door for the Trick-Or-Treaters for a few bucks. You can license an image of the door at Stocksy.com for your design or advertising needs.
You see these type of decorations all over Pinterest – a front door changed into a big scary or funny face. My front door has windows in it, so it doesn’t really lend itself to easily putting a couple of eyes and a mouth on it. It would have to be completely covered. Some people will tape some wrapping paper or school bulletin board paper over the entire door and go from there. I had seen one classroom door dressed as a mummy, with strips of paper across it. Good starting point, but I wanted it to be more “real”.
A trip to the local Jo-Ann craft store providing all the necessary materials. My crafty wife suggesting using muslin as the fabric for the wrappings. Sounded good to me, especially at the bargain price of $1.99 a yard. I grabbed 4 yards of that at the cutting counter. I initially thought it would be wide enough from top to bottom once the fabric was unfolded from the bolt, but it ended up that using it that way would have limited my ability to tilt the strips across the door. So, next time, 5 yards would have given me a little more leeway. Also, I grabbed 2 pieces of black poster paper and 1 piece of orange paper.
Back home, I unfolded the fabric longways and then top to bottom. I went to the door and held it longways, side to side across the door, at the tilt I wanted. I then cut the fabric top to bottom at that length, and repeated that for the rest of the 4 yards. So, I ended up with 3 sections about 40 inches long by the 36 inch top to bottom. I then made cuts down the 36″ top to bottom side at the width I wanted the strips to be. It may sound confusing, but you’ll figure it out. I did, and I’m certifiably non-crafty.
Muslin is super easy to rip. So, from the cuts, you just start tearing strips. Repeat, repeat, etc. Done with the strips, now I took the orange poster paper and cut out the eyes. You can do what you like, but I traced half of a mixing bowl for each, with a straight line across the middle, which I would tilt to make evil eyes. Cut them out and take those and the strips to the front door.
I used blue painter’s tape to put up the black poster paper across the middle, covering part of the glass. The eyes went on next, at a rakish tilt, taped to the black paper. Then I started adding the fabric strips, side to side at a tilt. I used the wider one as a base, with the thinner ones on top for texture. The strips would wrap around both sides of the door, being taped out of sight with more painter’s tape. Sure, it’s ugly on the inside, but only we see that part.
So, it took about $15 to do, and an hour to put together. Materials list:
- 4 – 5 yards of muslin, depending on your door width
- 2 pieces black poster paper
- 1 piece orange poster paper
- 1 roll blue painter’s tape
- scissors
I might suggest a slightly heavier muslin to be more opaque, but it worked. The kids think it’s pretty cool, and although I’m a month early for Halloween decorations, I’ll probably just leave it up. But I’m not too early to offer my images of it to designers and advertisers, which I why I put this project together. You can find the image here: http://www.stocksy.com/358315 and another view of it here: http://www.stocksy.com/358313 . Hope you have a good time decorating your front door!
