Boo! These Halloween yard decoration tips and ideas will help you get the attention of anybody passing by... whether hosting a big haunted house or just looking to spook some trick o' treaters.

Including how to make a Halloween graveyard, how to pick (or make yourself) freaky Halloween yard props like the ones shown here, and how to set it all up to look its very spookiest, you'll find it here.

I've also got a ton more resources for celebrating Halloween, including a whole section on planning a Halloween party and 65 awesome Halloween party recipes. And if you're looking for more tips and resources for Halloween yard decorations or party decorations, check out my page on buying or making body parts for a Halloween party.

Or go to the bottom of the page to get inspiration from great Halloween decoration ideas submitted by our visitors!

A Halloween graveyard is one of my favorite Halloween yard decoration ideas. There are lots of ways to do this, from an elegant and subtle Southern cemetery to a twisted and Hellish zombie playground. Have fun with it!

No matter how you decide to make graveyard for Halloween, you'll need to have tombstones. If you're short on time but still want to have a cool-looking yard cemetery, you can just buy the gravestones and cemetery materials online. They sell everything from realistic looking gravestones to skulls to zombies crawling from the dead, to cemetery signs. Have fun with it.

But if you're the creative type and want to save money by making fake Halloween tombstones or other Halloween yard decorations at home, it's really not too hard. Even if you don't feel like spending weeks creating tombstones, you can even make just a few extra (letting the kids help can be fun) to supplement your purchased Halloween yard decorations.

In general, homemade Halloween gravestones are made from either plywood, cardboard, or styrofoam. My favorite material to use? Styrofoam.

Why use styrofoam. I like styrofoam for tombstones and other Halloween yard decorations because it makes great 3D shapes, is ultra easy to work with, doesn't weigh a thing, and it's already got a pebbly texture that makes it the perfect medium for making Halloween tombstones. For the best result, look for sheets of styrofoam more than two inches thick. Styrofoam insulation works well, too.

The only thing to keep in mind when building Halloween tombstones from styrofoam is that this material can be a little fragile. So be careful when working with it not to break pieces off. While you can paint over it (and it actually doesn't give a bad effect to the overall look), it can be annoying to have to paint over broken white spots.

You can definitely have a good time playing with shapes for your Halloween yard decoration tombstones. The traditional tombstone shape is, of course, a rectangle with rounded corners at the top. But you can also do a Celtic cross, a strange and twisted gravestone, whatever you like. My suggestion? Start with simple shapes and work your way up from there, if you like.

If making your Halloween graveyard from plywood, you'll need a jigsaw. For styrofoam, you can just use a big utility knife-- another reason I like working with this material. Be sure to draw your shape onto your material before starting to cut. To get subtler shapes with a stryofoam tombstone, simply use a coarse grade of sandpaper and sand away.

At your local home improvement store, you'll see that they sell tons of different shades and textures of stone-like paint (the stone-textured paint works best). Play around and find what works best for your own Halloween yard decorations. The traditional is, of course, dark grey.

Now comes the fun part: time to add the epitaph. If you look online, you'll find tons of ideas for creepy or funny Halloween epitaphs. I like the ones at corsinet, or you could just Google it. Either paint your epitaph on free-hand, or use stencils to get professional-looking letting. Also add any other designs you want: creepy faces, skulls, curly-q's, whatever. The only limit is your creativity (and maybe your artistic ability).

• I. B. Ded
• Frank N. Stein
• Will U. Joinme
• I. L. Beback
• Otta B. Alive
• Fester N. Rott
• Ima Rotten

Tombstone Decoration Tip: When working with styrofoam, it's best to press any shapes (lettering, designs, etc.) into the styrofoam itself before painting it. This will give all lettering and designs a very real 3D look-- which is exactly what you want. A blunt-ended object works best for this.

You'll want to come up with a tombstone arrangement so that your Halloween yard decoration looks realistic. I like to make mine a bit haphazard so it looks unkempt. When you know how you're going to arrange them, install a couple of large plant stakes in the bottom of your styrofoam tombstones. This will keep them firmly rooted in the ground.

Even a great graveyard for Halloween needs a little ambiance to look its best. Forget to mow your lawn a few weeks before Halloween. Hang cobwebs from the trees, along with fake spiders of all sizes. Add a creepy fake crow or two and some bloody skulls. Even add a ground-breaking zombie to make it look extra freaky. Things light lighting, glued-on bits of Spanish moss, etc., can make the different between an ultra-scary cemetery and a so-so graveyard. Some more tips on decorating a Halloween graveyard are:

• Buy or make bones, skulls, or zombies to use around gravestones.
• Collect dead leaves in the weeks before Halloween and sprinkle them naturally around the graves.
• Add creepy dead (or black silk) flowers to some of the graves.
• Let the grass grow long around your gravestones in the weeks before Halloween.
• Place Jack o' Lanterns near gravestones and other Halloween yard decorations.
• Buy a Halloween yard sign.
• Add props, such as creepy lanterns or scary owls, cats, snakes, spiders, and ravens.
• Put up a Halloween graveyard fence to mark the path (also keeps your cemetery from being trampled).
• Mound earth in front of your graves to make them look freshly-dug. And maybe a shovel?

You don't need to build a Halloween graveyard to have a creepy Halloween yard decoration. With a few simple-to-make props (or a few cheap store-bought ones) you can create plenty of spookiness without a lot of effort. Below are a few of my favorite simple projects for making Halloween yard props.

More interested in buying props? Look a little further down the page for ideas on which ones to choose.

Also check out this page on making Halloween body parts decorations. In addition to simple severed arms and legs, you'll also learn how to make a full-body rotting skeleton for a Halloween yard prop.

Making ghosts to hang from trees for Halloween is really fun and really easy. In fact, it's so much of both of those things that you may make more ghostly Halloween yard decorations than you actually need.

To make a ghost, all you need is a small white garbage bag and a ball of some kind. What do you do? Simple place the ball in the top of the trash bag, secure the bag underneath the ball with a twist tie or rubber band, and draw a face on with a black permanent marker. Then hang them everywhere. This is a great Halloween craft for kids!

Tip: You can also use newspaper or styrofoam globes to stuff the head of your ghosts. Newspaper makes this an ultra cheap (and green!) Halloween project.

Making a mummy for a Halloween yard decoration requires a teeny bit of carpentry, but it's actually pretty easy. All you need to do this project is two thin lengths of wood, some old and disposable used clothes, some old newspapers, and a bunch of white bandages. Easy as could be.

1. To make your mummy, make the shape of a "T" with two boards that are about two inches thick each. The taller board should be the height you'd like your mummy to be at the shoulder, and the shorter board should be the width of his shoulders. Place this frame in the ground or on a stand.

2. Attach your old clothes (pants and a shirt) to the frame. You may need to staple the pants in place. Stuff with newspapers to give it shape, and tape the shirts and pants together securely (don't worry-- the duct tape won't show, so feel free to use it wherever you need to).

3. For a head for your mummy Halloween yard decoration, either use a styrofoam head on a spike, a plastic skull, whatever you like. It'll be covered with bandages (unless you want to leave a scary face showing, as pictured), so only the shape is important. Be sure to attach it securely with more tape.

4. Cover your Halloween yard mummy all over with white bandages (or long, torn lengths of white fabric).

5. Decorate as desired. You can use spray paint to make it look ancient, or add fake blood, or give it a weapon... whatever you like! If you can find plastic scarab beetles, they make a very cool addition when glued on and around your mummy.

Specialty Halloween Yard Props

Most large Halloween yard props are a little on the pricey side, and are generally good only if you've got plenty of storage space. They don't break down into very small parts, and so are hard to store for many people. However, if you're really dedicated to Halloween and have a bit extra to spend on your Halloween yard decorations, you might want to invest in a few large Halloween prop decorations.

Pricing for large Halloween yard props varies hugely. Some are almost full-sized and as cheap as $15 while others are more sturdy, detailed, and expensive. Still others will be animated, intricate, and value in the thousands of dollars (really!). You won't find any of that last variety here, as these sorts of props are generally used professionally in haunted houses and the like. You'd have to be really dedicated to Halloween to buy one for your own home!