So my husband and I are very poor. Not my Facebook "friends" version of poor where they complain about how little money they have but are always going on road trips in their nice expensive cars and Instagram-ing on their iPhones then head back to their beautiful home and/or apartment that they don't even pay rent for.
No, we are not that version of poor.
We are
actually poor where the bank sends us notifications all the time asking us why our account is under, again. Yeah. Good times. We live off my husband's tip money so citizens of Logan, if you buy from Papa Johns PLEASE tip your drivers!!! We buy food with tip money.
Anyways, that was a rather lengthy and pointless tangent, the real point is that we're poor so we can't spend lots of money decorating for Halloween. But Halloween is my favorite holiday so I was very disappointed when I had this realization. Last year I made this
fabulous pumpkin craft for my mom and
decorated my parent's house but this year I have nothing? I was so upset!
So my wonderful handsome and generous husband gave me ten dollars (or ten "bones" as my work friend put it (it's punny because it's Halloween (it's not funny because I just explained the joke))) to spend on Halloween decorations! And even though ten dollars may not seem like a lot, I knew I could make it work, and I'm proud to say I did!
Let me just say that
Dollar Tree is my friend (or Dollar ee, the lights are currently out). I know some of them aren't as great, the one by my parents house isn't that great but the one in Jackson Hole is fantastic, and the one here in Logan is pretty good. They have a whole Halloween section, but they also have other useful items.
Here is a complete list of the materials I used in decorating the outside of our apartment:
- Black construction paper (available at most stores, fairly cheap, I already had some though)
- Orange construction paper
- Black table cloth (available at the Dollar Tree for one dollar, don't buy it at a party store!!)
- Spider webs (the cotton-y stuff, available at the Dollar Tree for cheaper!!)
- Styrofoam tombstones (found at my Dollar Tree, possibly not at all)
- Black spider fence (found at my Dollar Tree, again, maybe not at all)
- Chalk (I bought a 100 pack for $1 at Dollar Tree)
- Scissors (already had some)
- Tape (already had some)
So in total I paid:
- $0 for construction paper
- $2 for two table cloths (but I currently only used one)
- $1 for spider webbing
- $3 for three tombstones
- $3 for fence
- $1 for chalk
- $0 for scissors and tape
...for a grand total of $10!!!
Let's get onto what I did. We have this fantastic dirt patch in front of our door (it has the potential to be a garden, but I didn't realize until halfway through the summer that I could plant things in it, so it just grew weeds, but we pulled those out recently so now it's just dirt, with a few weeds left). We were able to use this dirt patch for the tombstones and the fence. It looks fantastic!!
Then we have brick outside our door, so I covered all of it with the spider webbing. I freakin' love that stuff!! I'm pretty sure last year I paid like two or three dollars for one package, but I was so grateful Dollar Tree had it for cheaper! The package also came with four spider rings that I put in the webbing.
So, the tablecloth. I know you were probably curious about that one. While exploring the ever wonderful Pinterest, I found
this webpage and knew I had to do something like this! It had no instructions with it though. I considered using construction paper, but figured that would just get complicated taping this together. So I had this brilliant idea to use one of those plastic tablecloths! I learned right away that you have to double layer it or it will just look see through.
I used the chalk to draw out what I wanted, then I cut it out with my scissors and taped it to the window! It was honestly that simple! And it turned out so much better than I had imagined! In the middle of the day when our blinds were open it was actually creepy to see a person in our window! I only used one of the tablecloths however, I have two other windows that I am considering making silhouettes for as well. Unfortunately that takes a bit of time and I honestly have none. So we'll see.
The actual first craft I did was making bats out of construction paper. It was super easy, just took some folding and cutting. I then taped the bats to the door, wanting to make it look
something like this, and it worked out really well for me. If your door is likely to get hit by lots of rain or wind though, this might not be the best idea unless you laminate them. Mine have been up for a week though and been fine.
I also used construction paper to make a lovely "Happy Halloween" sign that I think is super cute (but I'm biased) and it just added a cute finished look to the door. It also made us seem less scary, which is good because we have a two year old living in the apartment right next to us.
At work my lovely coworker Todd said a fabulous sentence, "Speaking of dead things, I found something for you." (I think we were talking about dead cell phones) It was a creepy sentence and I was a little worried, but about ten minutes later he presented me with black mice cutouts, pumpkin pictures, and a Halloween... something... scarf? drapery? string? pom pom? snake? I don't know. I loved it all! Thank you Todd!! (Yes
we're janitors, but he found them in a box that was going into the trash, it wasn't already in the trash.) I used the mice in the windows, I haven't yet found a use for the pumpkins or the... thing... but the mice are fantastic!
Below are all the pictures of my Halloween crafts and decorating (all spooky-ified)! I hope you enjoy them and get some ideas! I would love to see if you, too, can spend only $10 on Halloween crafts! Please leave a comment or email me so I can see your Halloween decorations too!!
Look, you can even see the witch in the window through the open door!! We loved the way this all turned out and hope you like it too! Holidays are so fun, but they don't have to break the bank! I hope you all find ways to celebrate Halloween under $10 as well!!
