Do it yourself Free
One weekend, a sheet of plywood and some string lights. Costs almost nothing and still stops traffic.
| Spot | What to get | How big | How many | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A |
Giant PVC Spider
Build it
The star. Dead center on the front walk, 8 to 10 ft back from the porch steps. Pick something with actual sides to it, not a flat cutout. One of your two streets is going to be looking at the back of this.
|
3' 6" H | 1 | $34 |
| B |
50 in. Lighted Spiders, pair (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
2 pieces
Sidekick, left. Left of the walk, 5 ft out from the edge. Keep it under about 60 percent of the centerpiece height.
|
1' 3" H | 1 | $25.99 |
| C |
Hairy Spiders, 6 pack, 30 in. to 12 in. (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
6 pieces
Sidekick, right. Do not put these on the lawn. The legs bend, so they belong on things people pass within a foot of: the rail, the step edge, the mailbox, the door frame, the underside of the porch light. Three sizes in the box, so graduate them, biggest nearest the door and smallest furthest out, as though they came from somewhere. Never space them evenly and never in a line. Two together and one apart reads as infestation; six at equal intervals reads as bunting. They are flocked fabric on wire, so they will take a shower and will not take six weeks of rain. Bring them in after Halloween or write them off as a $16 annual.
|
n/a H | 1 | $19.99 |
| D |
Purple Solar Path Stakes, 10 pack (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
10 pieces
Path and perimeter lights. Both edges of the front walk, then keep the line going along the side yard. Do not stop at the corner of the house. This run is the thing that ties your two street faces together.
|
1' 3" H | 2 | $55.98 |
| F |
Orange Incandescent Mini Lights, 300 count (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
300 pieces
Roofline and porch. One continuous run along both street-facing rooflines. Skipping the side roofline is the number one corner-lot regret.
|
2" H | 2 | $51.98 |
| G |
Bare Arch, Dressed
Build it
Side yard scene. Straddle the walk with it so people go through the web rather than look at it. Stretch the webbing thin and anchor it at a few points across the opening, pulling it out into strands rather than draping it as a sheet: a sheet of web reads as a bedsheet, and thin strands catch the light and move. Leave the middle of the opening genuinely clear at head height, because people will walk through this in the dark in costume. Buy an extra pack of web for it; one pack does the arch or the shrubs, not both. Put a spider on it, high on one shoulder rather than centered.
|
7' 4" H | 1 | $31 |
| P |
Stretch Cobweb, 14.5 oz, with 150 spiders (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
0 pieces
Under the porch roof. STRETCH IT FURTHER THAN FEELS RIGHT. The single thing that separates a good web from a bag of cotton wool on a rail is how thin it is pulled: keep going until it is almost transparent and you can see the porch through it. A dense white clump reads as packaging. Anchor it at three or four points and let it sag between them rather than lining the wall with it. Corners, the underside of the roof, across the top of the doorway, between a post and the rail. Real webs span gaps; they do not wallpaper. There are 150 small spiders in the bag, so put a few IN the web rather than all of them on the floor. One bag covers a porch several times over, so use the rest on the shrubs.
|
n/a H | 1 | $7.99 |
2 things need an outlet, about 2.2 amps all together. That all fits on one 15 amp circuit, you are fine. Outdoor GFCI outlets only, and leave a drip loop in the cord at every plug so rain runs off instead of in.
You will also need
The cord is the part everybody forgets, and stores run out of them at the peak of every season. Outdoor rated only, and plugged into a GFCI outlet.
- 1× 25 ft Outdoor Extension Cord, 16 gauge (opens in a new tab) 2 plug-in pieces across 1 spot $16.98
- 1× Outdoor Timer with Photocell (opens in a new tab) Switches the whole display on and off on its own $14.98
- 1× AA Batteries, 8 pack (opens in a new tab) 6 AA needed, none included $8.99
About $40.95 of hardware, on top of the $226.93 of decorations. Buy it once and it comes back out every year.
A couple of spots do not have a pick at this budget yet, so the plan leaves them empty for now:
- Nothing in Spiders, Spiders, Spiders fits spot E (The corner moment) at this budget yet.