Decorating for Halloween

Let me start by saying that Halloween is definitely not my favorite holiday. I won't get on a soap box here or anything, but I'll be honest and say that if I didn't have children, I'd probably just skip Halloween all together. So, when the neighbors down the street started decking out their house and yard with two-story ghouls, cobwebs, skeletons, bloody baby dolls and other gruesome things, I wasn't at all excited.

Maybe I just don't get it.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm, though, something has been different this year. I've actually been enjoying coming up with some new (non-disgusting) decorations for Halloween. In fact, I almost wasn't sure I was going to be able to stop!

It all started with these cute blackbirds that I found at the Dollar Tree.


I used one to update my front door wreath, along with some new fall-ish ribbon.


You knew I'd make a Halloween sign, didn't you? Of course you did!



A few more blackbirds, a skull, some pumpkins and a couple of big, hairy, creepy spiders complete my outdoor decorations (for now).







One day I was minding my own business, puttering around blogland and happened across a tutorial on Sawdust and Paper Scraps. She'd turned some thrift store lamps and dollar store skulls into these cool candle holders.



I really wanted to try it, too. So I made a trip to my beloved Bargain Center in search of an ugly lamp I could dismember for this project. The Thrifting Gods smiled on me that day and I came home triumphantly in possession of possibly the UGLIEST lamp I've ever laid eyes on. Yessss!!!
After removing the enormous, hideous, fringed, braided, appliqued, and torn scalloped shade, you can see that there are four candle holders underneath.



I took the lamp apart and laid everything out along with some plastic skulls I'd purchased at the Dollar Tree and spray painted it all black.


Then I reassembled everything the way I liked and it actually turned out pretty cool! (I wish I'd thought to take a picture before the candles burned down so far.)




I had to buy a length of threaded rod, some nuts and 5 candles for this project, which I think brought the grand total to about $15 for my one-of-a-kind, spooky candelabra.




Like my hot glue spiderwebs? :)




Another fun and MUCH easier project that I wanted to try was a set of specimen jars. I already had the glass containers (which I use in my kitchen), and thought they'd be perfect for this.


I made some tags in Photoshop, distressed them a little along the edges then tied them to the lids with string.


There's a skull (from Michael's)...


... a big rat (also from Michael's)...


...and since I haven't been able to find a bat like I wanted for the third one, I decided that it's creepier to have an empty jar on its side with a missing specimen!


There are several more blackbirds perched here and there in my living and dining rooms, as well as pumpkins and fall leaves scattered around.


This "boo banner" was made using a tutorial found on Smilemonsters by way of One Pretty Thing.



Yet another super easy project was changing out the pictures in the group of frames in my living room for some creepy Halloween ones. Have you discovered The Graphics Fairy yet? Awesome, awesome image source. I picked a few spooky graphics that I liked, then edited and printed them on some card stock. Here are the ones I chose.









And here they are all framed.



I set up a couple of crates in a corner and filled them with some pumpkins and pine cones and added one of my signs.


One more spooky sign for good measure...

... and my house has gotten a pretty good dose of Halloween, wouldn't you say?