Hey there party people! Halloween is right around the corner & I’m soo excited. This whole blog started from my sister Meg, my roommate Sheena & myself throwing a Halloween party. It grew to an annual event and friends started asking me for party ideas. Abra-ca-dabra…PartiesforPennies appeared. ;p Halloween has a special place in my heart because of that. That and my parents didn’t let us celebrate Halloween (no judgement if that’s what you choose to do). I missed so many years of dressing up that I think I’m making up for lost time. But enough about me…let’s talk about YOU and what YOU can do to spookify your house for Halloween. Here’s a little vignette that will, hopefully, give you some spooky & thrifty halloween decor ideas. 
For this little set-up, I spent a total of $3 for the two pumpkins. You could actually spend less by buying your pumpkins at the dollar store. The whole purpose of showing you this is because you can use things you already have around the house to create an eery scene. 
This is actually not a lantern. This is an old milk carton. 
I just measured about a 3/4 of an inch around the edges and cut out a rectangle with my exacto knife. 
After I got my lantern cut out, I sprayed it with primer then black spray paint. Ofcourse, it would be hazardous to put a real candle in there so I used a flameless candle. I highly recommend investing in some flameless candles. I’ve used them for so many things. 
Like this makeshift candelier I hung in our garage for our backyard wedding reception. It allows you to create an ambience with anything without the fear of catching fire. (Ignore the blogspot watermark…that was my old P4P address ;p) The shredded paper I added was old newspapers. I soaked them in tea water and let dry. This gave it a really old look to it. After it was dry, I put it through my home shredder. 
The pumpkin is covered in Annie Sloan chalk paint. I had a sample of it from the Haven blog conference.
I then used a pack of old stamps I had from my wedding favor project to write out “Happy Halloween.” Oh yes…I also touched up the stem with a silver paint pen.
(Wedding Favors for the guys – book page covered matchboxes with our initials)
Reason #1001 why you can tell your husband you REALLY need to save all those old glass jars & bottles. Or maybe that’s just me that has to convince my husband our entire under the sink area should be consumed with old glass jars, empty yogurt containers, strawberry plastic containers, etc. ;p
This was an old vanilla bottle that I knew I’d be able to use eventually. HA…see husband… ;p And vanilla can be expensive so I just feel like I’m taking advantage of my ROI!
I also used the old stamp letter set (I definitely feel like I’ve gotten my moneys worth from that…it’s only a couple bucks at Michaels…use the 40% off coupon!) to write out “potion” on an old scrap of paper. To make it look like old masking tape, I just tore either end.
I used the Annie Sloan paint on this pumpkin and just used every Halloween-inspired word I could think of to decorate this baby. Again…it’s resting on the shredded newspaper. The books these are resting on, I found around the house. Kinda fun that I ran across, Dantes Inferno. Perfect for my Halloween vignette.
The gray gauze-like background was from the dollar bin several years back that I had in my stash but you could also use regular gauze you have from your first aid kit. Dip that in your tea water, let soak for awhile then dry.
Hope this inspires you to save money & find things around your house that you can create fun Halloween vignettes.
All this week, I’ll be posting more scary ideas (not really scary ;p) for you! Including a basically free & interactive Halloween costume that could be for adults or kids.
p.s. You can now LIKE Parties for Pennies on facebook! Click here.