Spooky Solutions

Halloween is the one time of year when good taste goes out the window. So delight your neighbourhood's little monsters with ghoulish candles, paper bats, diabolical wallpaper and wax skulls, writes ALANNA GALLAGHER

HALLOWEEN IS A TIME to park good taste and camp it up big style, mixing the surreal with the fangtastic and the plain tacky to create a house of fun.

Halloween brings aesthetes out in a rash. But the Americanised version of our old pagan Samhain is one of the cultural highlights of the Irish calendar and deserves to be marked by making some sort of effort, both in your dress and your decor.

It’s the one time of the year when you will be happy to open your door to strangers – so make sure your home and hall look the part.

Start by making the place inviting to children, is the advice of landscaper and florist Mark Grehan, who runs The Garden, a nice space to the rear of Powerscourt Centre.

“If you’re going to have kids calling to the door, then do make an effort to decorate it and make them feel welcome,” he says. “Dried horse chestnut leaves threaded together can be used to garland mantelpieces and create front-door wreaths. And a group of scooped-out pumpkins, one large and three small, set outside the front door always looks festive.”

He also suggests placing grass plants in the pumpkin to give it a spiky hairdo or laying moss inside so that it looks like its oozing green goo.

Triona Sweeney, who runs the Sandymount School of Art, says black sugar-paper bat silhouettes attached to roller blinds is a simple and effective way to spook up your home. Templates can be found on the school’s Facebook page. She is running pumpkin and turnip carving classes for parents and kids in the run-up to fright night.

Traditionally in Ireland we carved turnips – far less aesthetically pleasing than the richly coloured American pumpkin, and smelly if you leave the carved vegetables indoors. Use outdoors only, Sweeney cautions.

There are oodles of fabrics and wallpapers that also channel the spooky mood. Glasgow-based Timorous Beasties (timorousbeasties.com), well known for its surreal designs, has a super-cool, look-hard-before-you-see-it Devil Damask flock wallpaper that will bring out your dark side. It costs approximately €241 for a 10m roll, excluding delivery. They also have a rather beautiful inked iguana wallpaper that might creep some out, but is bang on trend, as are all manner of entomology motifs. It costs €47 per metre of extra-wide (135cm) paper.

The Carlucci collection by Jab Anstoez makes good use of the skull motif, an emblem that the fashion house of Alexander McQueen has made its own. Make a wall of mixed fabric, €116.95 per metre, or scatter cool skull cushions, €120 each, on your seating. All are available to order at Brian S Nolan in Dún Laoghaire (01-2800564; briansnolan.ie).

Wendy Crawford, co-owner of Bow boutique (01-7071763; bowpowerscourt.com) will be adorning her sofa with Day of the Dead cushions by Matoloki. These paisley-print skulls come in navy, red and grey, and are made by Ashbourne-based mother-of-two Johanne Maher. The large cushion costs €30 and the small is €17. Bow is running a special promotion on the cushions over Halloween; two large for €55 and two small for €30.

Nothing beats candles for instant ambiance. John Adams of Article (01-6799268; articledublin.com) loves Torc Candles, a Co Carlow-based company whose scented range, Pure, comes in coloured tumblers that include a poptastic shade of orange and a glossy black. You could line up in a row in single colours or alternate orange with black, he suggests. “It’s a simple but sophisticated way of working the look into interiors.” They cost €19.50 each.

Large statement wax skull candles by DL Co at Harvey Nichols would look great in bathrooms and hallways. They come in orange, magenta, lime green or red and cost €105 each.

Marks Spencer stocks a smart black pillar candle with a skull and crossbones motif, €7, and Penneys has the most adorable 3D candles in the shape of ghosts and pumpkins. They cost €3 each and measure about 11cm tall. Dunnes Stores has some good-value filled-glass pumpkin candles. They come in two sizes: small at €3, large at €8.

A couple of well-placed gothic-looking candelabra will also impress. Aoki Interiors (aokiinteriors.ie), based in Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary, has some really atmospheric creations that would make Morticia Addams go pale with delight. A gold five-arm classic style with grey or black candles (€599) could bookend a dining table. Another less-elevated option is a chrome design with twisted icicle-shaped droplets (€295). Again, black candles would really add to its dark-heart aura.

A touch of the surreal is essential to add a sense of fun to fright night. Ben de Lisi has done a black telephone table lamp (€52.50) that looks the part, especially if covered with fake cobwebs. It’s due at Debenhams at the end of the month.

If that’s too much for your magnolia coloured heart then try adding interest using simple orange paper shades (€4.75 each), or add a pop of orange in a table lamp (€67), both at Marks Spencer.

That just leaves the question of what to serve. Anita Oakey of Aoki interiors has three kids, aged 14, 12 and eight, and will be serving them eyeball punch. Mother-of-two Johanne Maher makes a witches’ brew from old tea bags and smelly shells they find on the seashore, and leaves it out on October 31st for the undead to drink. At the very least, you should cook up an interesting stew using a classic 1970s orange Le Creuset cast-iron pot from Arnotts (€110).