10 Murder Mystery Party Decoration Ideas That Will Transform Your Home

I made a bunch of customizable wine labels for one of my parties and have put them online for everyone else to use. You can personalize them to match the theme of your party, or use them to create Best Detective and Best Dressed awards to give away at the end of the game.

If you have a co-host who’s fast at printing and gluing, you can even add the winner’s name and photo to the design in real-time.

Custom Murder Mystery Wine Labels

One of the easiest things to add to your home to make it match a theme is customizable posters. They could be wanted posters, vintage movie posters if you’re going for a classic Hollywood vibe, or even posters that looked like they were ripped out of an old magazine. I like to add things to them that match my current party and guests.

These free templates are all fully editable in Canva, so you can make them your own.

Custom Murder Mystery Posters

Design your own fake newspaper front page stories with headlines about the party or your friends. Print copies out and leave them around the party. This is an easy design step that adds your own personalized touch to it. I always include details that specific guests will recognize, like a funny story they’ve told me, that’s now immortalized in print.

Custom Murder Mystery Newspaper Template

These are little pricier than other items on the list, but they’re also bought once and used for a lifetime. Whatever quotes, memories or clues you want to write out for your game, look a lot better on a chalkboard than printed out, for some odd reason. The messages can be rubbed out and changed for each game, and the chalkboard itself comes in handy for scribbling reminders and other notes while counting down to the dinner night.

Simple black tableclothes work great for every murder mystery theme, but you can also spice things up with some unique colors and designs. You could even just purchase a cheap runner in gold for 1920s parties, silver for 1940s or burgundy for Victorian. A black tablecloth is the universal murder mystery base. It works for almost every theme and makes everything else on the table look more deliberate. Add a runner in a period colour – gold for 1920s, burgundy for Victorian, silver for modern noir.

You can also use some horror-themed table decorations to make your table a bit scary.

This one isn’t for every theme, but some work well with dimmed lighting or electric candles. A single set of electric candles is plenty to add atmosphere for a 1920s, or 1930s a Victorian era or even a Halloween murder mystery party. They’re cheap and cheerful, and are an item that you can reuse for every subsequent party.

I’ve used the same electric lights for multiple years, and they’ve lasted much longer than I expected.

This is a very easy decoration idea and works well for any modern theme. Yellow and black “CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS” tape costs almost nothing and and can be bought from any party supply stores or on Amazon. You can use it to decorate the space in advance, or save it for when the first death happens.

If you’ve ever seen a detective show with a corkboard covered with character headshots – you know that it’s a staple of murder mysteries. I like to use actual headshot of my friends and place their character names and occupations underneath. It’s funny for friends, but also helps everyone keep track of who the other guests are playing.

It takes about 30 minutes to set up and doesn’t cost much. You may already have some items at home to create your own DIY board.

Even your dessert can be part of the mystery with crime scene cake toppers. Use little chalk body outlines, knives, or detective badges to decorate your cake or cupcakes. These cupcake toppers are usually made of high quality paper, so they’re safe to add to your desserts.

I like hanging bloody banners in my main party room. You can also get some with messages like “Crime Scene” or “Do Not Cross”. These are obviously designed for modern theme. They definitely won’t work for 1920s themed parties.