My Continuing Quest for the Ideal Immersive Low-Cost Halloween Display

Every year as the days grow shorter and the leaves turn, I begin an inner tug-of-war between the artistic and frugal sides of my personality.

For more than a decade of my marriage, my family and I lived on a lonely street with little traffic. It was a two-lane road in principle only and the porch was separated from the street by just a handful of feet--meaning that passersby would rarely have more than a moment to view any seasonal decorations as they squeezed past oncoming cars. As a result, we didn't spend much time on outdoor decor.

More than for my spouse, this was a big struggle for me. When I was growing up, my parents took advantage of any reason to decorate. Our Halloween preparations were particularly elaborate. My dad went to the trouble of creating a six-foot tall Frankenstein monster out of plywood, newspaper stuffing, an old greenish brown suit coat and a plastic mask. He also wired the outside of the house for sound--piping spooky sounds and music out onto the lawn. We'd hand out candy in costume.

So when I moved my wife and kids into a new home a few years ago--one at an intersection visible from two different streets--I told myself that I'd make our holiday displays the most memorable on the block. However, as so often happens in life, I soon found that the pressures of work and chores didn't allow as much time as I'd have assumed.

Now I could just buy a bunch of stuff at a home improvement store, but I didn't want to buy something--I wanted to make something. And I have done so, on a small scale, as circumstances have allowed. A couple of years ago, I followed a tip I found online and made carnivorous plants out of plastic pumpkins. The stems were tree branches--yard waste--and the pumpkins and paint cost me maybe $20-30. I positioned them around our front door and along our retaining wall--leering into the street. Last year, I created some big disembodied eyes and stuck them in our trees and shrubbery. I wasn't as thrilled with this outcome--as there was more mess than with the pumpkins and I didn't like the aesthetic as much. (All-in cost was comparable.) In both cases, I saw these as nothing more than experiments, proofs of concept related to pieces that could one day be used as part of a larger display. So now I'm interested in putting together something more eye-popping. (Sorry--couldn't help myself.)

But what to make? I don't want to spend a fortune, though I'm willing to spend several multiples of what I spent in those prior years. And I want it to be unique.

There is another house not far from mine where the owners decorate their lawns with wooden cut-outs of Peanuts characters, and I've thought about doing something similar with different characters. But again, that wouldn't really be unique--just a different take on someone's existing display.

While my perfect display would probably be to buy a burned out van, paint it to look like the Mystery Machine, and park it on the edge of the driveway*, here are some (somewhat) more feasible ideas I've considered:

• Create a sea of hands sticking out of the ground across my lawn--perhaps with eyes in the palms
• Use flexible corrugated tubing to create a huge snake or octopus
• Use garbage cans, corrugated tubing, plywood, and silver spray paint to create human-sized robot alien invaders
• Stuff garbage bags with newspaper filler, cinch them near the top, and wrap them in gauze to look like mummies--perhaps hanging from a large spider web also made from gauze
• Put a plastic cauldron on a pile of fire wood, stuff it with gauze, and then have a trail of tentacles extending out of it and across the lawn
• Create a bunch of wooden or fiberglass shark fins, place them in lines and circles across my lawn, and then supplement with mannequin arms/legs as well as maybe a lifesaver, a broken oar or even a small boat. (This one might be my front-runner right now.)

Whatever I choose to do, I need to factor in several considerations such as:

• The display needs to be multi-directional and would ideally carry from my front yard to my side yard--as both are visible from the street
• We get significant gusts of wind blowing down both streets during the fall, so the display can't really include elements likely to catch the wind and tumble/topple
• We still want to get trick-or-treaters, so the display can't make either the front or side of the house inaccessible to foot traffic; and, of course, I still need to be able to park my car

What do you think? Do you have any other Halloween hacks that I should consider? Post your suggestions in the comments section below. Meanwhile, I'll update as I start to narrow down options and/or as I begin to tinker with any promising ideas for this season.

* A close second would be a damaged blue police box surrounded by statues. :)