Exploring Our Halloween Decorations

I love decorating for the holidays. Its not really something my family did when I was growing up. I was one of 12 children so financially it wasn't an option, but more impactful, I was raised in a strict religious household, so certain holidays such as Halloween were not observed, which now as an adult I may not agree with. So of course, as a parent I want to give my child the chance to do things that I was not able to enjoy.

My husband was also determined to provide our son the things he couldn't experience as a child though his reasons were different, being an old child of a single, extremely hardworking father. So each holiday we decorate and participate in the common activities ... egg hunts, tour Christmas lights, etc. But we both love Halloween so each year we get more and more.

Sometimes I make decorations, sometimes we buy them, but we love it all. Because we are a military family and have to move often we have to be careful about home much "stuff" we collect through the years. We usually keep most of the decorations inside the house, opting for small things like jack-o-lanterns and stuff outside as Oct. 31 draws closer.

So today, after taking our little one to the Children's Museum and grabbing lunch, we stopped at Yankee Candle to get another candleholder and headed home to take the decorations out of the attic and get set up.

orange

We ended up finding 3 boxes of decorations, one from last year when my husband was stationed in Korea. He left about a month after we moved back home, so whatever went into the attic was in no order whatsoever and I wasn't attempting to sort it out by myself with a curious 2-year-old "helping". The other two was thing that we have sorted down and decided we couldn't live without from the last military move. I try to go through and purge a little because there are times when a duty assignments were so short, we didn't unpack everything.

So here are some of the treasures we found ... The orange spider plate above was a quick and easy project I made in 2011. I found an orange charger and sticker at Michael's Craft store, then cut the sticker to the size I needed and used extras to decorate the borders.

This candy bowl always cracks me up ...

We just got this Yankee candle and it smells soooo good. Its called Candy Corn. My husband chose one called Witch's Brew which he discovered in 2011, and it smells good also, but I love the ones that have a sweet smell. My little guy keeps blowing this candle out, so it'll probably last forever!

This centerpiece is all of my husband's favorite. He really likes the Boney Bunch Collection so I guess we'll be adding to this now that we are home for a while as he completes law school. The candles are "bleeding candles" that we got at a Halloween store in Florida. They are while by the wax turns red as it burns. Its really cool looking.



My favorite collection of Halloween things are the silver and black ones. They just look really good together. I have an upcoming project that I'll post on Friday that fits well with this group.

So have you started to decorate for the holidays yet? What are some of your favorite decorations? Do you make them or buy them?

Until our next cup of tea ...