I didn’t really have any intention of doing much inside our home for Halloween until Brian was watching football all Saturday a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t have much to do so I put on a podcast, started shopping from my prop garage, and went to Halloween TOWN. I had enough leftover from outside decorations to fully deck it out and within a few hours had four fun areas with ample spook.
Black Cloth | Orange String Lights | Black Taper Candles | Candle Holder Trio | Crow | Mirror | Dolls (vintage) | Candelabra (vintage)
The black creepy cloth was leftover from the covered walkway (I originally wanted to mix black and white cloths but it didn’t look good.)This one is from Target and $10 and wow, quite the impact. The mirror was leftover from the Crate & Barrel kitchen shoot and it’s so pretty (and has that slightly Victorian vibe which fits this vibe). I found the creepy dolls during my mimosa-infused birthday vintage shopping trip with Kaitlin (shout out to Monticello Antique Marketplace and adjoining cafe). The candles are a mix of vintage ones I had and this trio from Target.
When it comes to portraits of dead people it’s the almost unanimous feeling by all family members that these are “creepy” and “weird”. And they are very vocal about it. FINE. So one month a year they will make their debut inside. This year Birdie and her friends helped don them with googly eyes (they put different sizes on each eye which I think is a GREAT styling touch). I also want to point out that we are not going to light the candles on the mantel and I plan on replacing them with battery-operated ones (much to Orlando’s total disgust:)). Brian came in and schooled me for open flames near the cloth and the, you know, feathers… Don’t do this at home, obviously, and was just for the shoot.
Floor Candelabra (vintage) | Target Pillar Candles | Bats | Spiderwebs | Portrait (antique)
The stairway wasn’t a normal place to decorate for Halloween, but I had that large antique portrait so I popped it there, found this floor candelabra (shout out to Jess for her well-timed post last week), and bought these $8 twisted candles from Target (I like how they catch the light in a pretty way). I had bought two boxes of bat trios but only used one on the front porch so hung these here and threw some spiderwebs on the whole thing.
Pre-Lit Twiggy Trees | Portrait (antique) | Baby Doll (vintage) | Skeleton Hand | Spider | Radio (similar)
Another creepy cloth + dead doll + orange lights moment. This time without the googly eyes because it’s an actual painting (and was splurgy from an antique mall, she is from the 1700s!!!). Still perfect for Halloween, but she stays there year-round. The “vintage” radio is from Target, again like eight years ago and it plays spooky static with voices that the kids love.
Light Up Ghostly Dress | Broomstick | Pre-Lit Twiggy Trees
Inside we hung this hanging headless lady that I thought I was going to put in entry but it didn’t have any power there (white dress against white house and already had black bats and spiderweb). She is PERFECT here. We’ve had that black plastic cat from Target for seven years and it still terrifies me (if you walk by it will move its head and screech at you with red eyes). It also terrorizes the pups.
Likely my favorite of them all is the entry. We took down the art (thank goodness for that gallery rail) so Mom and Dad could go here. There is definitely a dead bride vibe with the white spooky cloth. I got them both together from an antique store in Sellwood. I loved their blue color palette (shocker).
There you go – Halloween inside and out (check out the front porch and covered walkway if you missed it). Birdie helped with most of it because she is my little styling buddy (truly some of the most joyful seconds of my life are doing this with her). Thanks to you all for giving us an excuse to go for it
*Styled by Emily Henderson (me!) and Birdie Henderson
**Photos by Kaitlin Green
