It’s the beginning of October. You know what that means!
Halloween decorations!
In our previous house, I would go ALL OUT on Halloween decorations. Then, on Halloween night, we would light all of the candles in our lanterns and pumpkins, put our dogs in their costumes, and dump bags of candy in our big bowl for trick or treaters. I even have a Halloween shirt I wear (it might have been a free Malibu t-shirt with a ghost on it, but who notices?). We may or may not try to mix up a special festive drink to go along with it too. I just love getting into the spirit of Halloween!
Last year, we had just bought our house and were living with my in-laws during the fall, so I missed this entire decorating season! I feel petty saying it, but I was seriously a little bummed! We still got together and dressed our son up for his first Halloween. It was still a great memory, even without getting to decorate my own house.
This year though, I get to bring my big tub of decorations back out from the basement! Its full of skulls, skeletons, black crows, bats, fake spiders, and cobwebs. I even have a couple of broomsticks to put out. With it being our first Halloween in our new house, I have been looking for a little inspiration so I thought that I would share my ideas with you. I also have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to Halloween – go check it out!
Witches
Ok, first of all – witches!! My parents used to hang up every year a witch that looked like she flew into the tree in front of their house. Something like you see in these pictures. They created it really easily with a black cape, a witch hat, an old pair of high heels, and some scary monster looking gloves. I have been dying to recreate that! It was always one of my favorite things.
You can’t have a witch without her broomstick! I used to set my front porch up very similar to this, but we have enough live spiders and real cobwebs outside to make me question putting out a bunch of twigs for them to make their nest in.
I really, really love this witch school photo. It used to be sold on Joss & Main, but I can’t find it there anymore. If anyone can find a dupe, let me know!
This witch’s hat is really fun to put as a centerpiece or if you have room on your mantle! I made my own a few years ago, and really didn’t have a clue what I was doing, which made it look even more authentic! I cut a large circle from a piece of cardboard and wrapped it in black fabric. Pretty sure hot glue was involved. Then I cut a large triangle out of the black fabric, sewed it together to make the top of the hat, stuffed it with fill, then probably more hot glue to get the two pieces together. It turned out surprisingly pretty cute!
Bats
Bats are really easy to DIY. Get some black construction paper, trace the shape of a bat, cut it out, and you have instant Halloween decor! If I remember correctly, it looks best if you have different sized bats. These are similar to what I’ve made in the past. I’m trying to decide where to put them this year. In our old house, I taped them to our mantle, but our current mantle is made of stone so I’m guessing it won’t stick very well. Maybe around a door frame?? I’m 99% sure that I added these bats after seeing them on ThriftyDecorChick‘s blog!
Mantle Decor
I feel really silly saying this, but one of the “must haves”, when we were looking for a new house, was a fireplace and mantle. I love decorating it for all of the holidays and seasons!
I really love the banner in this picture! It’s also available as a free download at carinagardner.com.
Signs
I love making signs for different seasons and holidays, especially if they have a funny or witty saying. Bonus points if it is Harry Potter related. 🙂 I have made a couple of signs myself using the same method that I use to make my chalkboards (you can read more about that here).
Check out these awesome free printables from Twelve on Main!
This chalkboard art is soo easy to do! The Lily Pad Cottage breaks it down step-by-step for you. I’ve used this as my chalkboard art every year.
These two signs crack me up!
Over the Big Moon has compiled a list of some spooky free fonts if you want to make your own signs!
I can’t wait to start decorating! I’m especially excited to see my son’s reaction to all of the fun things in my Halloween tub. Can’t wait to show you my Halloween decorations!
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