Decorate for a Spooky Halloween Dinner Party: Cobwebs, Catacombs and a Model Train Village

Welcome to the 611th Metamorphosis Monday, a blog party sharing fabulous Before and Afters!

For this past week’s Tablescape Thursday, Jackie welcomed us into her beautiful home. There was a big surprise waiting just inside the front door!

 

Yikes!

Jackie will be having a small Halloween dinner party this year instead of the big Halloween party she normally hosts. I love how she has still gone all out in decorating for the gathering. Her guests are going to love it!

 

Love how Jackie draped a beautiful fall leaf garland around this doorway.

 

This doorway got a completely different treatment! Jackie said, “This year I decided to make the catacombs around the doorway.”

Halloween Doorway with Skulls, Bats on Wall

 

 

Jackies said, “I used skulls from the Dollar Tree, spray foam from Home Depot and Spanish Moss from Michaels. It was super easy. I cut the foam board to fit around the door, sprayed the foam and stuck the skulls into it. Painted it and added the moss. I decided after, if I used wood as a base it would have made it sturdier, but much heavier.

I attached it to the wall using velcro strips that you can easily remove when done. The only part left is the cemetery that I will create in the backyard. I also can’t wait to see how all my themed food turns out – so more to come!”

Halloween Decorating Tips

 

This is amazing! It looks so professionally made, like something you would see in a theatrical set! Notice the one really big skull in the center of the doorway…he’s acting as the “keystone” for this creepy Halloween door surround. Ha! The crows and bats are the perfect finishing touch!

Halloween Decor Idea, Skulls Around Doorway

 

Jackie offered a great Halloween decorating tip. She said, “Some easy tricks are adding Spanish moss and webs to almost anything will make it look scary.  Draped cheesecloth dyed in tea also gives it that old dingy look.”

Love that idea for lamps!

Halloween Decoration Ideas, Bats and Creepy Cloth Covering Lamp

 

One of my favorite rooms in Jackie’s home is here in her husband’s study. Is this not awesome?! Love the candlelight on the shelves!

Jackie said this backdrop definitely makes for some fun Zoom video conferences! lol She said whenever her husband, Chuck, has a Zoom meeting, everyone gets a big kick out this backdrop! I don’t know about you, I but would definitely take seriously any guy who has skulls on his shelves! 😉

Library Decorated for Halloween

 

In another part of the study…

Spooky Library for Halloween

 

I always find it so tricky, decorating with cobwebs, but I love how it looks when you’re done. I’ve read the trick to getting them to look real is to spread them out as much as you can. The more you spread them out, the more realistic they look. Jackie has mastered that technique perfectly!

Halloween Library

 

Another favorite space in Jackie and Chuck’s beautiful home is this amazing train room! Jackie and Chuck decorate it for holidays, including Christmas.

Model Train Village Decorated for Halloween

 

Jackie said, “The train set has evolved. We had a small one up last year and then over Christmas 2019 my husband went a little crazy with buying more trains. We actually have 3 trains that can go simultaneously.”

I love trains! Whenever I get stuck at a train crossing, I always roll down the window so I can hear and “feel” the train passing by. There’s just something so magical about a model train creation and I love the village Jackie has created around this one.

Model Train Village, Halloween Village

 

Jackie said, “It usually has HO scale houses, but I collected Lemax Halloween pieces from Michaels, so I took all the smaller scale houses down and put up a Halloween village. I will do the same for Christmas with my Department 56 houses.

I thought we would have to take the entire model train down this year when we had our big Halloween party but it worked out that we didn’t need the extra space and I had fun decorating.”

Ohhh, the train is passing by the graveyard. And it looks like the fair is in town…check out that amazing rollercoaster!

 

 

Would you go for a ride on The Giant Wheel?

Halloween Model Train Set

 

Oh, look! It’s the Pumpkin Tilt-n-Hurl! Wait a minute, I thought it was called the Tilt-a-Whirl. Ummm, not sure I’m going on the Tilt-n-Hurl! lol

Pumpkin Tilt-N-Hurl Halloween Ride, Model Train Village

 

I would love to see this train village decorated for Christmas! Any train enthusiast out there?

Model Train Village, Halloween Village

 

Jackie’s theme for her annual Halloween party last year was The Greatest Show on Earth. I asked Jackie about the picture on the wall in the background behind the train village.

Jackie said, “Yes it was our theme last year. I ended up wearing a different wig for the actual party, the red one was just too long. That is Chuck and my 2 daughters and son-in-law as the strongman (his arms were not photoshopped, they are really that muscular) and our family friend Bill as the clown.”

What an incredible picture and such a cool way to remember last year’s party! Also great to see the beautiful woman behind all this magical, whimsical decor!

Greatest Show on Earth

 

Jackie, thanks so much for sharing your home all decorated for Halloween! I can’t wait to see what you do for Christmas this year!

Looking forward to all the wonderful Before and Afters linked for this week’s Met Monday!

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Metamorphosis Monday

Metamorphosis Monday is a party that’s all about Before and Afters. Please link up your Before and After projects like DIY projects, room makeovers, craft projects even recipes. Any Before and After is great! Please do not link up Table Settings, save those for our Tablescape Thursday party on Thursday.

If you are participating in Met Monday, please link up using the “permalink” to your MM post and not your general blog address. To get your permalink, click on your post name, then just copy and paste the address that shows up in the address bar at the top of your blog, into the “url” box for InLinkz when prompted.

In order to link up, you’ll need to include a link in your MM post back to the party so the other participants will have an opportunity to receive visits from your wonderful blog readers.

Update: Please do not link up table settings/tablescapes for Metamorphosis Monday. Please save those for our Tablescape Thursday party on Thursdays. Recipes are fine because that’s definitely a “Before and After” but please save your beautiful table settings for Tablescape Thursday. Pretty vignettes (transformations) you’ve created on atop a chest or somewhere in your home are great for our Before and After party, but let’s save the actual table settings for Tablescape Thursday.
 

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Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing Jackie’s incredible Halloween party, wow, it was the Greatest Show on Earth!!

  2. Cool! Is this Jackie from Purple Chocolate Home?

  3. What fabulous ideas! I am having a small spooky Halloween party on the 23rd and I am inspired! Thanks for sharing!

  4. franki parde says

    I adore the model train lay out…a labour of love and, truly, “I’ve been working on the railroad, all the live long day!!” franki

  5. So much fun!!!

  6. Wow – the sequel to last week is just as great! Fabulous job Jackie, and thanks for sharing, Susan! I love the trains too! Maybe I need to have you come set up a background for my Zoom meetings! 🙂

  7. Kudos to Jackie and Chuck for all that work in decorating!

  8. Snowflake281 says

    Wow, with all that work & effort, I’m sure Jackie’s dinner party will be just as awesome as her decorations. If she is thinking about serving wine at this year’s get together, may I suggest a Cabernet Sauvignon called Freak Show. This wine would have fit Jackie’s previous year’s theme but may work out just as well this year. I have no personal or business connection with this wine, I just happen to think it’s pretty decent. Great job all around.

  9. What a fun post. I really like all the Halloween decorations around the train. It really gives you a chance to play. The Halloween decorations are all spooky for sure and I notice the two at the dining table are playing “footsie”; too cute. The candles in the study make it spookier too. I bought some of the fake tealights on timer to try, but I’m waiting because I don’t want to use up the batteries right away. Thanks for sharing Jackie and her fun family.

    • Jackie Allen says

      Hi Kathleen, I understand your concern about using the battery operated lights. I have so many of them and every evening at 6pm they come on. I have gone through so many packages of batteries this month! But it is so fun to see them all lit – it gives it such a spooky ambiance! Thank you for the nice comments!

  10. Great display. Love the decorated trees at the entrance.
    Marilyn

  11. Thanks so much for hosting each week!! It is greatly appreciated!! Stay safe, healthy and happy!!
    Hugs,
    Deb

  12. Brenda s. Lawrence says

    Jackie is so talented at making her scary decorations! I love the way she made the creepy Halloween door surround! It amazes me what I see people do with foam board. I love the way she did her husband’s office too, had to laugh about the Zoom meetings though. lol But it is the train room that really had my attention. That is so cool!!! Love that they didn’t have to take it down and could decorate it too. I totally loved last year’s Halloween photo as well. What a great idea! I wonder what this year’s will look like? And I agree it was cool to see what Jackie looked like….kinda’. lol Jackie is just the coolest for sure! Hugs, Brenda

  13. Wow! That’s all I can say. Wow!

    Actually, I can say more. 😀 Jackie is quite a character! It seems she and her family really have a lot of fun and enjoy life! (And she and Marie should get together, lol) Mostly I wonder where Jackie gets her energy to do all this (like you, Susan). And how long does it take her and where does she store it all? And yes, I do love model trains and the cute little trees and villages and people, though I have never had a set. And I love Jackie’s tips and the way she put her catacombs together. Quite inventive.

    So many things in the pictures to comment on – but this post would be yards long.

    Thanks Susan, and thanks to Jackie. I would love it if she’d do a full house and grounds tour for us. — Wish I could meet people like you two in ‘real life.’ You’re both so much fun.

    • Jackie Allen says

      Thank you Pam. I enjoy creating so much – it keeps me energized! I have a large storage unit that I keep Halloween and Christmas in. It is so worth it to me. But if you are ever in my home be careful if you open one of the hallway closets – that is where Michael Myers and some others hang out the rest of the year!

  14. So much Halloween inspiration in one place! Thanks so much for hosting, I hope you’re having a great week, CoCo

  15. Jackie Allen says

    great minds think alike – we did serve Freak Show last year as one of the options at the party. It is a good wine! This year I think I am going to search online for a creepy cocktail, maybe add some shrunken apple heads to it – I used to love making the apple heads when I was a young girl. Thank you for the nice comments!

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