Simple Creative Tips for a Spooky Halloween in 5 Minutes or Less

The past several years for Halloween I’ve been working with Oriental Trading because they have such a FABULOUS selection of Halloween goodies to craft and create with.

This year you guys know I’m doing a Harry Potter Holiday House so a lot of my Halloween stuff is of course overlapping with that. And since it’s taking me literally months to put together our holiday house with my DIY ideas I needed super easy Halloween decoration ideas that were not only affordable but that came with a little bit of creativity.

Now that my kids are getting older they are just as hooked on Halloween as I am and they make it a huge ordeal to get the house ready.

I spotted cardboard picture frame cutouts at Oriental Trading and knew I HAD to have them. I want like 100 of these things – they are SO COOL! I painted mine black with a craft sponge to achieve a more streaky “cracked” look. Then I taped a piece of green cellophane inside the cardboard picture frame and the kids glued mini eyeball flying discs (also from Oriental Trading) right onto the cellophane!

Now when they walk down the hallway there are eyes watching them! The extra discs (they come in a 72 pack) will get handed out as party and classroom favors.

 Running along with a cross between Halloween and our Harry Potter Christmas theme I wanted to decorate the house with bird cages and owls.

I fell in LOVE with this black birdcage card holder from Oriental Trading – I HAD to have it! It was actually in the wedding section! It’s huge and it’s gorgeous! The clocks I picked up at our thrift store and the lantern full of pinecones in the back also came from Oriental Trading last year.

I hope they expand on their home decor section because I’ve been totally impressed with both the quality and prices of these items! It adds some class to our Halloween decorations and I actually will leave this up year round!

This guy is one of my favorites!! It’s an LED Skeleton Ground Breaker and cost under $17! This was a MUST for my budget – I fell in love with it right away! Although he’s meant to be placed out on the ground he is the PERFECT size to sit on top of the back of my toilet!

It would be cool to cover the rest of the toilet tank in a black shirt or cloth but with my boys I can’t guarantee that it will stay clean enough to stay there for the season!

I also ordered Spooky Soiree Cellophane bags that will double not only as decorations filled with spiders and eyeballs but I will also use them during my Hogwarts banquet party for treats.

Last year we made these spooky potion storage jars but I needed something really easy this year. I printed some Harry Potter potion labels out here and then simply filled these small potion jars with art sand!

I LOVE the way they turned out! Now I can use them both for Halloween and for our Harry Potter Christmas!

In fact I planned my whole budget around these little jars….well these and the bird cage and the skeleton Ground Breaker – I couldn’t live without those 3!

I have a thing for collecting unique jars at our local thrift store much to my husband’s demise but they are all bigger and I needed small potion jars. I LOVE this set from Oriental Trading because it features 6 completely different shapes and they match perfectly with my unique larger jars.

I used Glue Dots to attach the labels on several of the jars because I didn’t want to permanently ruin them with Mod Podge. It was a quick fix. Some of these large apothecary jars also came from Oriental Trading last year as well.

Here you can see the large and small jars on my apothecary shelf!

Other Simple Halloween Decor Ideas:

*Black cheesecloth, spider webs, and spiders!
*Black Roses
*Dry Erase Markers – draw bats or BOO on your mirrors!
*Printable paper bats
*Pumpkins!
*Jars of bones, eyeball ping pong balls, etc.

Definitely check out the Halloween supplies on Oriental Trading! Whether you need party supplies, home decor, outdoor decor, classroom decor, novelty items and trick or treat goodies – they’ve got it all!

 

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