Halloween home tour – DIY, craft & simple decor ideas

I love this time of year so much! We always have weekend packed with fall and Halloween activities and I get to sneak in a ton of decorating! Today I am sharing my Halloween home tour – DIY, craft & simple decor ideas, and I am so excited talk about how I made this work with not a ton of effort.

Before I jump into things I wanted to remind everyone that any DIY posts, tutorials or crafts featured within this Halloween home tour will be linked at the bottom of this post.

 

I actually am a little early with my Halloween decor this year. My son Caleb turned 9 last week and mentioned two days before his birthday “Mommy, the house will be decorated with Halloween stuff for my birthday, right?!” Umm, yeah, totally! So I got the job done, went running around my home like a crazy person while he was at school the day before his birthday to Spook-ify my home.

 

My kids have lived with a decorating obsessed Mom their whole life, so I guess I should not be surprised that my son had decor requests for his birthday. I was not going to disappoint, the boy wants spiders, ghosts, pumpkins and bats STAT!

As usual my Halloween home tour is a mix of store bought items and DIY decor. I also blend in and make work a lot of my year-round decor, just adding the spooky and scary Halloween theme. This is what allows me to decorate my home for Halloween without spending a ton of money or taking a lot of time to get it done.

 

Simple changes to my regular decor I turned into Halloween decor by adding cute spiders, paper bats, even some fun fake eyeballs were put into glass hurricanes to up the fun Halloween feel.

 

My kids have one big part of helping me decorate for Halloween, their job is to put bugs all over my home. They set out spiders, centipedes and other creepy crawlers anywhere they want. They love having final say in where these bugs are put, it has become a fun tradition they look forward to each year.

The one disadvantage to this is that I definitely miss some spiders or bugs when putting away my Halloween decor. Once I get my Christmas decor out I still come across a few fake spiders that I missed in cleaning up.

A lot of the Halloween decor was layered on top of my fall decor. I shared the fall home tour a few weeks ago. After Halloween I will be putting my home back into it’s cozy fall look for a few more weeks. The transition from Fall to Halloween is really simple to do because I have a lot of items that stay the same.

 

The owl and tree trunk have been creepy crawler-ified!

 

The one new addition that I am loving is the bold throw pillows I picked up for Halloween. They are black and white with big geometric pattern and fit in perfectly for Halloween. I actually got them to use as floor pillows because regardless of how many chairs or sofas I have in the home my kids insist on sitting on the floor to watch TV, play a game or read. o I am hoping the floor pillows will make them be a little comfier. For the Halloween season though they are my sofa pillows.

 

Another way I made my fall decor work for Halloween was on my fireplace mantel. I purchased two new large leaf wall art that I had on the mantel for fall. I took one down and added paper bats to the art piece. It felt spooky without being over the top.

Oh, also using these cute and easy to make Halloween chalkboard signs that say boo and spooky. I will be sharing the quick and simple tutorial for those next week on the blog.

 

I did not even DIY the decor on my fireplace mantel. I purchased the Happy Halloween banner a few years ago and it is still holding strong. The paper bats were also a purchase a few years ago. Each year I put them in a different spot and the add such a fun and spooky feel to my home for Halloween.

 

Decorating a home is personal, this is a home, the place where memories are made. I want my family to feel just as much a part of this home, regardless of my blog this is first ans foremost our family home. So I always find ways to let me kids decorate. The little spiders they add to the decor is one way. Another is cute little kids Halloween crafts that they have made in the past.

The cute mason jars were a fun Halloween craft they did last year. I got the kit ready to be put together from a craft store. Little touches like this are what makes a home feel special, lived in and loved.

 

The dining room centerpiece is the same one I used for my traditional fall decor, I added some paper spiders to the lanterns and some fake cobwebs to the sticks. Simple swap out into a Halloween theme.

 

 

This year my Halloween decor needed to be a little more subtle in colors. I used a lot of black and white to help blend in the blue I added to my fireplace and a few other furniture pieces. Making seasonal decor work with year-round decor can be difficult at times, so keeping the holiday or seasonal decor neutral is a safe bet. Or like I did and using black and white, that is an easy and fun Halloween theme.

 

When in doubt when decorating for Halloween, add some bats and spiders to the existing decor. Simple, low cost and easy to do with a fun twist to the holiday. I have seen the paper bats and spiders at Target, Walmart, craft stores and tons of Etsy stores.

 

In changing out my Halloween decor with more blacks and whites, I am loving the simplicity of it so much! Each year every season and holiday seems to have a mind of it’s own, my home changes just a little. This year I have fallen in love with the crisp and clean look to my Halloween home.

 

 

The one area I always try and keep the decor really simple is with my dining room table. Don’t get me wrong, I love a gorgeous tablescape but I have to keep things realistic and functional. I have young kids and this is the table we eat our dinners at, I want them to be able to see over the centerpiece during conversations and knock knock jokes that get thrown around.

 

In decorating with any holiday making it be realistic is key. Make sure you can still live among the decor, walk past it, the kids can run through the house, Nerf gun wars can happen around the spider and bat decor. I always want to prioritize the ease and importance of a casual home. I want my kids and anyone visiting our home to feel like they can relax here, even with pumpkins and spiders sitting around.

 

We have a small family room tucked away off of the main living room, I kept things really simple in here because there is not a lot of space or furniture to set smaller decor items on. Keeping in mind the scope and size of a space should always be though of when decorating for a holiday.

We are not a big TV family, we watch a little bit when the kids come home from school and then typically have family movie nights a few times a month. Most of the time this room is used to read, relax in and just hang out. All of that needs a comfortable room and lots or seating. As far as Halloween decor I added paper bats to the wall and some spook-tacular throw pillows.

The plush rug I changed out from a blue rug that was in here during the summer. This one feels warmer and perfectly fall. The tree stump stools are soft and also the things my kids choose to sit on. I eventually want to get a coffee table in here, but these stools and their ease of moving around works really well for our family.

 

For Halloween this year I focused even more on the fun and whimsical aspect of the holiday. My kids are still in the trick-or-treating, costume wearing phase of life and I am here for it! So, I am leaving the traditional or “classy” Halloween decor for when we have a older family. As of now we are young and active and this Halloween decor with its cute kids Halloween crafts, creepy crawley bugs, bold patterns and so many paper bats on the wall, it feels fun and perfectly Halloween.

I am happy to report that the birthday boy was so excited getting off of the bus after school and seeing I did in fact get the home decorated for Halloween before his birthday! Because I utilized what I already had in terms of decor, with a few simple and easy Halloween additions I was able to knock out the decorating quickly. Now we get to enjoy this fun holiday! We have plans to go trick-or-treating with a bunch of families in the neighborhood, then everyone is coming back here with a bunch of soups in slow cookers for dinner. Our kids will run around, laugh, be in their costumes and beg us to have a dinner of candy. I love this holiday so much!

I hope you enjoyed my Halloween home tour – DIY, craft & simple decor ideas and found some little nuggets of inspiration for your own home! Keep it simple, easy and fun, that is what this holiday is all about.