Little Pearl is dark this year. And my heart hurts.
It wasn't COVID that shut it down, but that had been weighing heavily on my mind as to whether or not we'd even have a Halloween this year. Rather, it was a decision to move back to the area I grew up that I now find myself sitting here on the 3rd day of the greatest month of the year and all my haunting goodies are in a 16' POD somewhere in Oakland, CA. And I am not handling it well.
What will all those kids who've come by to Trick-or-Treat think when instead of a Halloween feast for the eyes, they find only a "FOR SALE" sign? Have I let them all down?
I will of course rebuild. I told the realtor that my #1 priority was that my new neighborhood had to be Halloween friendly. Because I'm coming in hot and with zombies. On October 1st. Every year.
In the meantime, I drive around with painful envy of the most meager of yard displays. Even poorly done spider webbing makes me jealous (sort of, it's still pretty bad. Stretch it people! Stretch it!)
What this has afforded me is the opportunity to tackle an idea I've been knocking around: the "$100 Haunt." Halloween props, GOOD Halloween props that is, can be expensive; the high price a deterrent to decorating for just "one day." Home Depot's 12ft Skeleton nearly came home with me when I went to get some soil in August. At $300 and in the middle of a move, it would have been hard to explain to the Mr.
You can pull off any number of my Property Possession themes with a handful of smart purchases for around $100. From there, you can add as you desire, growing the display as you find more treasures over the years or you can choose to leave it at it's economic perfection. As I was feeling rather low, I hit the nearby Home Depot for some Halloween Retail Therapy and bought everything for a Witch's Lair display, including the pumpkins. Here's how I did it.
Shopping List:
1x Lantern Candle Holder $13.98
Paint Brush $2.00
Cinnamon Broom $4.99
Total: $86.04 (w/o tax)
*This is an old pail I have been using for years to mix concrete for my tombstones so technically I didn't need to purchase it this go around. I've included the cost to be fair.
The following are items I always have on hand for crafty stuff. Whatever you can't find at Home Depot you can pick up at the grocery or dollar store:
Paper Towels
Distilled Vinegar
3% Hydrogen Peroxide
Salt
Lemon Juice
SOS Pads or Steel Wool
Rubber Gloves
Goof Off (degreaser)
2x Pumpkins
*At Home Depot they were around $5 a piece which is a great value. Add to your discretion. My personal minimum of double digits had to be curtailed this year. Grr.
I aged the crate with my favorite SOS Pad solution and rusted the buckets over the course of 2 days until I got the color and look I wanted. That's pretty much it!
Stacking rusty metal buckets is another idea I've been wanting to share. Straw bales and crates are great, I obviously very much like crates. It just felt like in order to have fun with levels and height, that's all there was. Meanwhile, I was working on my rusted buckets post which produced, mildly put, A LOT of buckets. And when you're doing things like this to make it happen:
...funny how creative genius works. The crate reached a particularly lovely deep grey color; SOS Pad solution still beats Steel Wool in my book.
The lantern was discovered in the clearance area they set up outside the store, an area that frequently offers up great props at a great price, especially candle holders & lanterns. What would have been a lovely lantern for an outdoor summer dinner party is now at half the price and ready to illuminate a haunt instead. P.S. Later I picked up one more VERY cool lantern online that was also on sale not because the display really needed it, I just couldn't help myself when confronted with it's coolness.
Just those items alone produces a display rich in color and texture that could take you all through Fall.
From here, just about anything could be added to this base over the holiday, the months, or years. In my case, it was more like hours.
My 4 year old has an eye for the Nefarious by Nature and found some old wasps nests, a Magnolia tree seed pod, feathers, oak tree branches with lovely green lichen, and some detritus from a tree that look like snakes. Corn stalks were picked up from Michael's "Fall Foliage Sale." A fossil, picked up on a trip to Wyoming many years ago, was found in a drawer at my dad's and ticks both the Nefarious by Nature box and Sinister Souvenir.
My Haunter Hoarder stash contributed the rusted tin can and stained glass jar.
Goodwill offered up some Thrifty Thrills in the form of a pillar candle stand, small engraved metal pitcher and an engraved metal ball. Side note, my metal bucket stash was mostly built from thrift stores. Beverage buckets, buckets from gift baskets and flowers, etc. often find their way to these stores so you can stock up on metal buckets in all sorts of sizes and shapes for far less than retail. My amazing stash that sits, scared and sad in a POD in Oakland, will eventually make for a killer post.
I also wound up getting a roll of burlap and made a creepy cloth drape for the door and used the rest to cover up some building supplies that were seriously effecting the Halloween vibe. Burlap has many uses in a haunt, from false walls, to covering areas you don't plan on decorating, to creating vines or creepy curtains. And all for under $11!
Here's the end result. I really wish I had access to my antler sheds as I think they'd look great in the mix. Otherwise, I'm very pleased with my set up and can't wait to show you how to flush out more haunt themes without breaking the bank.
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| 3/8 Manila Rope threaded through the burlap, hung from hooks. I cut the rope long so it would hang down & then used it to tie the "vines" back so we weren't getting tangled every time we went in or out |
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| Untied, blowing in the breeze. Creepy! |
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