17 Halloween Centerpiece and Table Décor Ideas That Are Mysterious and Elegant

DIY Plaster Hands

Transform your tablescape into a ghostly display with these DIY plaster hands. All you need is some casting material (or a casting kit), a bucket, some plaster, your very own hands, and some creative thinking.

After creating the casts, pour the plaster into the mold and let it set before removing. To turn one of your plaster hands into a candle holder, hold onto a tapered candlestick while pouring the casting material, then gently remove the candle from the cast with your hand.

Dragon Display

Lotus pods have an inherently eerie quality to them, making them the perfect choice when it comes to Halloween table décor ideas. Pair them with darkly colored roses, gourds, black feathers, tapered candles, and dragon eggs for an appropriately frightening display.

Floral Skull and Skeleton Hands Centerpiece

If you could use a hand—or two—with the flowers for your party, try this: When guests arrive, be sure to introduce them to your dear, departed decorator.

Recreate our floral arrangement of smoke bush, 'Black Beauty' roses, allium, and carnivorous cobra lilies in a glass vessel, then set it inside a human skull. Prop a pair of lightweight hand appendages as candle taper holders.

Haunted Punch Bowl

Fill this vessel with dry ice for a smoldering display, or use it to serve punch. To begin, use a ruler to measure the halfway point on each pumpkin, and draw a horizontal line around the circumferences with a grease pencil.

Cut pumpkins in half and then discard the tops while lightly scraping the insides clean. Tape this punch bowl prop template to your pumpkins (starting at the backs, since templates won't meet up exactly), and poke holes with an awl along the outline of the patterns; continue around pumpkins, moving the template as you go.

Finally, use a keyhole saw to cut out shapes along dotted lines and tubing to cut tiny holes. You'll need to place the larger pumpkin on top of the inverted smaller one and use a 2-inch wood screw to fasten the pumpkins to each other. Insert a glass bowl, and fill it with water and dry ice if desired, or simply place your choice of punch in this space.

Metallic Copper-Leaf Pumpkins

These pumpkins are small and lumpy like gourds, which makes them perfect for autumnal arrangements that look stylish well past Halloween.

To make, place tape around the base of the pumpkin stems and paint the stems with gold acrylic paint. Cut a leaf shape (with a long stem) out of a metal sheet; turn face-down. With small and large tips from an awl kit, press vein patterns and larger ridges into the foil.

Wrap the stem of each leaf around a pumpkin stem, twisting the ends into a spiral. Arrange pumpkins on a tray with lit votive candles.

Deranged Halloween Centerpiece

Dreadfully sophisticated and shockingly fun, a bouquet infested with insects gets Halloween off to a screaming start.

You'll need to start by using glue to attach a selection of fake vinyl bugs to rose petals. Then, paint a toy snake using black acrylic paint and let it dry. Use floral wire to create an anchor for your coiled snake: twist one end around the snake's middle, and insert the other end into the vase.

Finally, secure a centipede (or another big bug) to the vase using some poster putty.

Mini Spray-Painted Gold Table Pumpkins

Who says Halloween dinner parties need to be macabre? If you're throwing an elegant fall party, spray paint miniature pumpkins in gold and add place cards written in gold ink.

A block-printed napkin and tablecloth and the marbleized plate add patterned richness, while a mix of mismatched contemporary glassware and classic flatware keep them feeling clean and modern.

Vellum Halloween Table Lanterns

When the sun goes down, set a spooky scene with these dramatic lanterns made from simple supplies and our exclusive clip-art designs.

Trace your chosen template (try one of our creepy cat cut-outs) four times, side-by-side, on black paper; with a bone folder, and crease where the sides meet. Cut out. Print four copies of a design onto a vellum, then cut each piece just larger than the frame "windows."

Tape vellum into the frame. Trim the bottoms straight, tape the edges, and then set them aglow.

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Creepy Candles

Cast a sinister glow over any setting with a cluster of white tapers dripping with "blood" (actually red candle wax). Fill a cup or a small pail with sand, and plant white candles inside so they stand upright. Light a red candle and tip it over the white candles so the wax drips down the tops and sides, being careful not to burn yourself. Let the wax cool completely before removing the candles from the sand.

Grandiose Flowers in Halloween Tones

While Halloween calls for unique touches and a spooky theme, that doesn't mean you shouldn't approach this event as you would any other.

These grandiose florals in Halloween tones are a great example of a sophisticated Halloween centerpiece idea that balances the fine line between thematic and overly cheesy.

Piled Pumpkins Centerpiece

For a sit-down autumnal feast, bring in unusual finds from the pumpkin patch: look for moody hues and interesting shapes and textures. This tabletop display includes Black Futsu and Long Island Cheese pumpkins, as well as bowls of knobby black radishes.

Pumpkin Floral Basket

A basket carved from a pumpkin is perfect for holding striking sprays of dark blossoms and leaves. Cut your pumpkin to be lopsided on its bottom if need be; then, measure halfway up your pumpkin and draw around its circumference with a grease pencil (the line should be parallel to your work surface).

Tape our template to the pumpkin itself, take an awl to poke holes along the template, and use a keyhole saw to cut out one side of the pumpkin along the handle's dotted line and circumference. Hollow the pumpkin, scraping the inside clean, and cut it out on the other side.

Cut along the circumference to finish the pattern and place floral foam inside the basket to arrange flowers.

Tattered Halloween Tablecloth and Spiderweb Decor

Hair-raising party decorations don't need to be costly or fussy. You can make these frightening flourishes with some inexpensive craft supplies in just a few minutes. We covered a table with gauze and then affixed black tissue paper tatters to the table and sweets-laden cake stands. Spooky card-stock spiderwebs hang from up above—spun, perhaps, by the store-bought arachnid dangling nearby.

To make the tatters, cut a length of black tissue paper about nine inches wide (3 inches for smaller varieties), then make 2-inch accordion folds down the length of the paper—after, trim the excess. Using a straightedge and a rotary cutter fitted with a decorative blade, cut the folded paper into a V shape, leaving a 1-inch border at one end.

To make the cobwebs, first photocopy the spider web template onto card stock, enlarging it by 400 percent for the smaller web, and an additional 150 percent for a larger web. Cut out the template, fold a 12-inch square sheet of black card stock (about an 18-inch square for the large web) in half diagonally, and then fold in half twice more to form a small triangle.

Trace out the template using a white pencil on this paper, and then use a crafting knife to cut out the pattern. Unfold, and hang using monofilament.

Glittered Skulls, Bones, and Bugs

These glitter bones and bugs are an eerie but elegant decoration for Halloween. Start by laying craft paper or newspaper over your workspace, and then use a craft brush to apply glue to half of a skull or bone.

Hold the object over a large shallow bowl or tray—spoon ultra-fine opaque glitter over the glued surface, making certain the glitter falls into all the crevices and sockets. Place the item on a tray; let it dry for at least an hour. Finally, tap off the excess glitter. You can repeat this process on each uncoated surface of the items you wish to include in your display.

Lastly, cover a handful of plastic novelty bugs in glue, and then place the bugs in a plastic bag filled with glitter. Twist the top of the bag and shake thoroughly to coat the item in glitter.

Moon-Rock Pumpkins Centerpiece

This lunar look has a sweet secret: To decorate these white Baby Boo gourds, all you need is rock candy, sugar crystals, and clear caulk—no carving knife (or spaceship) required.

First, break up the rock candy into chunky pieces. Spread the caulk on top of the gourds, and cover them with the sugar and candy. Then sprinkle more "moon rocks" around them. It's a few small steps for you, but one giant leap for your dinner table's ambience.

Haunted Mirror

This glittering figure—encrusted with thousands of rhinestones, beads, and faux pearls—was seen emerging from an oval-shaped mirror. At this party, he dutifully served as the bartender, highlighting the space where guests could refill their libations all evening long

Forbidding Flowers

A floral arrangement becomes positively frightening when covered in creepy cobwebs.

For this Halloween table décor idea, cut a 5-inch section from the inexpensive or damaged white pantyhose, and pull it apart until it becomes wispy and resembles cobwebs. Alternatively, buy some premade Halloween webbing.

Stretch the material over a cluster of dark blooms (we used crimson roses and dahlias, as well as some fiddlehead ferns). Set on a sideboard, or a dining table as a centerpiece.