Using Colored LED Lighting to Create Some Halloween Fright

Halloween is just a few weeks away. While you have probably given plenty of thought to your costume, have you thought about decorating your house or yard?

While most decorated houses have the typical tombstones, skeletons, spider webs and ghosts, the ones that stand out have one thing is common - great use of lighting.

You can use colored LED lights, string lights, filtered ultraviolet black lights and even timers to help create the spookiest house on the block. The following tips can help turn your house from ho-hum to haunted!

Blue and Violet Lighting, Including Blacklights

Color is very important to setting the mood or enhancing your setup. You can use dark blue lights or black lights to create a dark, creepy and eerie mood. Some decorations may fluoresce under UV-A lighting, creating a "glowing" effect that would be invisible without the ultraviolet.

Using blue bulbs, flood lights, or standard black light bulbs help achieve this effect. While blue may not seem like a "scary" light, it can often create a stark, empty, lonely feeling.

Red, Orange, and Amber

Shadows can be created with various colors in dimly lit rooms and provide that extra tension for high quality scares. Using red and orange flickering lights in dark rooms or in outdoor shaded areas help create these perfect shadows.

Red and orange lights are probably the most appropriate for Halloween and fall in general. Leaves turn red and brown, and those colors can be accentuated with light bulbs of the same general hue.

Yellow or amber lights can also be used, but in moderation. Yellow lights are most associated with bug lights, and they tend to give a golden glow that can be more inviting than unsettling.

Other Colors for Accents and Moods

Almost any color can be used, but the extreme ends of the visible light spectrum (blue and red) are the most common, with reddish colors being most popular for Halloween.

But there are a lot of creative potential uses for other colors. Here are a few simple ideas to get started:

• Green for an eerie radioactive or alien invasion ambiance
• Purple and violet can be used in a similar manner as blue to set a dark mood
• White lights can be used to create a stark and empty feeling, or to provide a little more general visibility of scary objects

All these lighting ideas can be combined with fog machines, timers, dimmers, or strobe lights for various lighting effects.