Spooky Ways to Decorate the Office for Halloween!

There's no doubt about it! With all the pumpkins, falling leaves, and warm spicy smells filling the air, fall has definitely arrived, and we all know what that means... Halloween is just around the corner! Pretty soon, kids and parents all over the country will be dressing up their houses and themselves, hitting the streets with glowsticks and goody-bags ready to reap the bumber-crop of candy that comes at the end of every October. But with everyone feeling the autumn's bounty, it can be hard to stay confined to the office all day. If your co-workers or employees moods seem turn as soon as they step inside, why not change things up? Let them celebrate the wonders of fall by decorating the office in the spirit of the season. Not only does it provide a change of scenery, but it also boosts office morale. After all, if everything else is getting dressed for tricks and treats, why leave the cubicles out of the loop? Here are some great ways to dress up the office for the fall season!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Everywhere!

Halloween is the second most anticipated holiday of the year in the United States, right after Christmas. With so many people in love with the tricks and treats, its hard not to be charmed by the fun costumes and the not-so-scary decorations, but nothing says "fall" for Americans quite like pumpkins! Most people don't know that long before pumpkins were ever used, turnips were actually the go-to choice for the jack-o'-lanterns that warded away evil spirits for Europeans. It wasn't until the settlers arrived in North America that these funny orange members of the squash family became associated with the grinning faces and fall festivities they're known for now, and we wouldn't have it any other way! Dressing up your office with pumpkins is not only super fun, but tiny pumpkins kept at modern office desks can make pretty great little paperweights! Additionally, pumpkin-carving contests are wonderful outlets for co-workers to bond and let off a little of their pent up energy after spending all day hunched over keyboard trays typing. While cutting a few of these familiar cute Halloween friends out of orange colored paper and pasting them around the office is the usual way to go, you may want to consider something a bit more unique. Instead of cutting pumpkin shapes, heres a few steps to making a different kind of paper pumpkin! Check it out at MarthaStewart.com and be the talk of the whole office!

Scarecrows!

Here's a fun way to get the office together for a bit of fun one day: building a scarecrow! We know, clearly its not the conventional thing to do for a bit of fall festivities, but it can actually be quite fun. Collecting the office crew and splitting them into teams for a scarecrow speed-building contest can unite the group, create some friendly competition, get everyone talking, and bring a bit of extra happiness into the office. Assign each person a piece of the scarecrow that they can bring to help build it or provide them with the materials. Then, give them the basic instructions on how to assemble it (which we will provide here for you, so no worries!) Finally, grab a stopwatch, build your scarecrows, and unleash the festivities. When they're assembled, place them amongst the stylish waiting room furniture in the lobby, in comfortable guest chairs, or in some old mesh task chairs that haven't been used in a while. You'd be surprised with the number of compliments and smiles you'll get from costumers who appreciate your establishment's whimsical side! If you'd like to make a scarecrow for your workplace, check out this article from WikiHow.com and let the fun begin!

Wonderful Autumn Smells!

Scented candles are spectacular for improving office environments. There are many studies to support the theory that certain smells can evoke responses in humans that can modify behavior, making us feel more energetic, more relaxed, less likely to anger, and even less stressed. What better way to improve the mood of the whole workplace than by adding the wonderful scents of the fall season to the mix? It is believed that spicy fall scents such as cinnamon and ginger can help to reduce fatigue, tiredness, as well as help to calm the nerves, making people more aware. Additionally, citrusy scents can quickly brighten moods, making a place feel and smell cleaner. By adding these fabulous scents to an office environment, employees may find themselves getting along much better with their coworkers and feeling more lively. Tossing a few scented candles in amongst the reception area furniture or on top of the fashionable coffee tables in the guest area can really make a room feel warm, homey, and comfortable - perfect for guests and visitors. Candles can be store-bought or made at home, but if you'd rather not have traditional candles in your office for safety reasons, incense, scented sticks, and plugins can also create great moods without posing as much of a fire hazard.


Fall Festival Office Theme!

Dressing up the office in the "Fall Festival" theme is a great way to show your employees and customers that your establishment can support a delightful whimsical side. Really though, this is true of almost any seasonal office decoration. Not only does dressing up the office liven up your employees, but when customers see the fun little pumpkins or snowflakes all over the office, they feel that a business is more of a human community rather than a mindless, cold-blooded engine of the modern age. Fall festival is perhaps one of the greatest decorative styles for dispelling the negative impression that businesses are without heart. It is a fun and energetic theme that gets everyone glowing with the warm comfort only the autumn can bring. Because the "fall" theme is a natural cycle of the seasons whose celebration is so widespread, and the theme is not necessarily tied to any religious holiday, few people are ever offended by the harmless little pumpkins and scarecrows stuck to the walls and cubicles. If you're considering a "fall festival" style to enliven your workplace, reds, oranges, yellows, and browns are definitely the colors to go with. Pressed and laminated autumn leaves can be attached to magnets and stuck to metal office carts and spacious storage cabinets to contribute to the theme. Additionally, colored-paper pumpkins, corn cobs, apples, walnuts, and hay piles stuck to just about anything in the office will undoubtedly show off your establishment's enthusiasm for the season.


Halloween Office Themes!

As we've established, Halloween is an extremely popular holiday filled with fun ways in which you can decorate the office. For traditional Halloween enthusiasts, oranges, blacks, and purples are the colors that best describe this holiday, which make them great for decorating the office. Choosing a Halloween theme for the whole office, for each room, or each set of cubicles adds a bit of whimsical variety that is hard not to enjoy. A few cool themes to get started with stem from the realm of popular costumes, but the ideas are visually endless. Some themes or characters you may consider dressing your  popular office desks with are witches, pirates, vampires, ghosts, pumpkins, superheroes, or even popular movie monsters. Hanging homeade tissue-paper ghosts and suspended pumpkins above modular multi-user workstations keep things animated without intruding upon the workday. If you'd rather not go with the super scary for the office, famous old fairytales and stories such as Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or the Grimm Brother's tales can provide a certain amount of fun that may feel much less scary or offensive to people who don't particularly care much for Halloween. These magical tales are familiar and cherished, making them very popular around Halloween, and the themes are very easy to decorate with. Here's a few decorating ideas and themes sure to boost your Halloween spirit:

Spooky Halloween Movie Themes:

1.) The Nightmare Before Christmas
2.) Ghostbusters
3.) The Wizard of Oz
4.) Halloween Charlie Brown
5.) Alice in Wonderland
6.) James and the Giant Peach

* Each of these Halloween family movies make fun costume themes either for people or for office desks. They are beloved for their childlike humor, familiarity, and relative innocence, usually making them safe choices to balance the spookiness of Halloween with the appropriate level of quirky humor that can be tolerated in a business environment.

Halloween Craft Ideas:

1.) Small tissue paper ghosts and bats suspended from the ceiling.
2.) Caution tape wrapped around ergonomic office chairs and desks.
3.) If you have ergonomic monitor arms attached to your computers, you can tape paper eyes and teeth to the computer screen to give the illusion of a friendly computer monster.
4.) Use tape and colored paper to dress up your computer's mouse like a real mouse.
5.) Tiny pumpkin paperweights ( you may want to draw funny faces on them to mimic jack-o'-lanterns)
6.) Candy-themed decorations.

* We hope this article has inspired you to enjoy this spectacular season for all its worth, both at home and at the office! Remember to stay safe, keep things appropriate, and most of all, have a very happy Halloween!