A Little Bit of “BOO” around the home

Some bits of boo are sneaking in to our home now that it’s October. I start off neutral and then as October rolls in, I’m ready for coppers and rusts and peeks of orange, usually just in time for the local trees to look spectacular, a perk of New England living. Our kiddos loooove Halloween and although I refuse to store gigantic Halloween blow up toys for the lawn, my hubby is spending a bit too long in that Halloween section of Home Depot for my liking. For the time being, I’ll add my own dose of spooky here and there, but cute spooky, little kid-friendly. So welcome to our cute spooky Halloween Home Tour, you can see all the awesome bloggers participating at the bottom of this post.

These heirloom pumpkins are my absolute favorite. I don’t remember these from growing up. You had two options: white or orange. But the different hues and shapes and textures of these fairytale pumpkins make me smile ear to ear. I’ve not brought home the one that looks like it has peanuts glued all over it but the soft green colored ones and pretty apricot pumpkins fly into my shopping cart as soon as they’re spotted and are my favorite. What fun it is to scatter them all over! Pumpkins and mums are kinda fall BFFs on our porch.

I made this pretty paper leaf wreath last year for Halloween, it was above our mantel and I loved it. It’s making its rounds and is on the front door this year, with a new satin ribbon none the less. You can see it in last year’s Halloween Home Tour here.

For the mantel this year I had a brilliant idea, one that I hoped worked. Haha! Not all my so called “brilliant” ideas work. But I took the boys on a walk and we did our best to gather sticks for my hopeful stick spider web. And although I absolutely loved our Halloween mantel last year and would have loved to reuse it, something heavy got stored on top of that sweet DIY village and the paper was all bent out of shape. This spider web idea seemed intriguing, at least in my head as I mourned the loss of my Halloween village. I had seen small versions of stick spider webs with yarn that I thought this would turn out cute but it turned out so much better than I expected. Add a cute pom pom spider with pipe cleaner legs and you’ve got a Halloween project that’s tasteful and fun. I used this tutorial from eighteen25 by Jen Johnson except omitted the part about eyes. I didn’t want this spider to have any.

I’ll have the DIY blog post up soon but as a quick explanation, I got six of the same thickness sticks to make the spider web “stem” pieces that would anchor the web to the wall and then brought out the yarn to string between. After my hubby had attached those sticks to the wall above the mantel using 1 or 2 tiny finishing nails per stick, we wondered if the whole thing would look better with sticks instead of sticks and yarn. I tried it both ways. I started stringing yarn between and it just wasn’t speaking to my heart so out came the hot glue gun. It was instant love and frankly, way easier than I expected. It maybe took an hour. Stay tuned for details to make your own. I love completely free decorations (aside from hot glue and a few nails). And the fact it hasn’t fallen down yet, I’m taking that as a creative win.

Halloween just isn’t a holiday I love to spend much $$ on, so this year, I came home from Target with two of the black glitter trees and that was that. And even looking at these trees you could easily replicate with some spray paint, sticks and black pails. The whole mantel came together for less than $10. I scattered pumpkins and some Halloween decorations around the family room for a festive touch.

And what Halloween tour would be complete without a cute ghost cake, with easy-to-make toppers using left over white yarn. I saw this idea on Pinterest from My Name Is Snickerdoodle, but tweaked it a bit since these were going to be cake toppers. I made them smaller and didn’t like all that yarn wrapped around their necks. I also didn’t need the hanging string coming out the top and lopped that off. Once I made the ghost topper, I cut some skewers and used the pointy end to push into the ghosts head (like you’re impaling the poor thing) and then pushed the cut side of skewer down into the cake. I staggered the height and voila–cutest ghost cake of all time.

I hope you’ve been inspired to tackle some fun Halloween DIYs this year. These are quite budget friendly and oh-so-lovely. Make sure you swing by the other ladies’ Halloween posts for some more inspiration as we sneak closer to Halloween. These beautiful pictures were taken by my friend, Ruthie of Ruth Eileen Photography.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links with Reward Style, which means I may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that I have recommended. These are all products I have in my home or are similar to what I have or have used to make a project. I am happy to inspire your home decor, crafting and party planning but please know that clicking any links on Finding Lovely will not cost you any extra money. As a stat at home momma, it does help me keep this site up and running smoothly with limited ads!