How to Turn Your Swing Set into a Haunted Mansion

Of all the holidays on the calendar, Halloween might be the most fun: getting dressed up, watching scary movies, going to parties.

And that’s just the adults. For kids, Halloween is even more fun: you get to do everything we just described, and you get a night where you can roam the streets in search of free candy.

Part of the fun – for kids and adults alike –is decorating. Some people go all out, turning their homes into haunted houses to thrill trick-or-treaters.

But why stop at your front porch? Your child’s backyard play set can easily become a haunted house with a few easy steps. Here are a few outdoor Halloween ideas you may want to try.

1. Scary Swings

A lot of people decorate by hanging skeletons, witches, scarecrows or ghosts from their front porch. Why not do the same with your swings or monkey bars? You can find some of these decorations at Halloween-themed stores or party stores.

But don’t be afraid to make your own decorations at home. It’s easy to craft a scarecrow using some old clothes and some leaves or straw, or a ghost by sacrificing an old sheet.

2. Backyard Graveyard

With a few cardboard boxes, paint, and a little imagination, you can turn the area around your backyard playset into a fake graveyard. Again, this is something you can accomplish with a trip to a Halloween store, but it might be more fun to create your own tombstones and let your kids come up with some clever names and descriptions.

3. Spin A Web

Artificial spider webs are a staple of Halloween decorations, and it’s just as easy to drape them over your backyard play set as over your front porch in order to give things a “haunted” feel. Continue the haunted house theme by hanging strips of black plastic trash bags from the entrance of a tree house to create the look of a dark hallway.

4. To The Bat Cave

Bruce Wayne had the right idea: bats can be scary. Hang a few bat decorations from your Halloween swing set to make things extra spooky. If you’re feeling creative, you can make your own bat decorations out of black craft foam.

5. Eyes Are Watching You

It’s easy to make a pair of ghostly eyes to watch over your swing set. Get the cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper, and use a scissors to cut a set of eyes into it. Use masking tape to apply it to the swing set, and put a glow stick inside the tube. Instant scary eyes.

6. Visit The Pumpkin Patch

Not all Halloween decorations need to be scary. You can decorate simply by putting up a few bales of hay or a pile of straw, and displaying the pumpkins you and your kids carved. (We’d advise using caution when mixing jack o-lanterns and straw/hay. If you want to light the pumpkin you’ve carved, use a battery-powered candle.)

If you have swing set decoration ideas but no swing set, we can help. Swingset & Toy Warehouse has a number of playsets that will allow you to turn your backyard into a haunted mansion.