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Writer's pictureJena - The Grocery Gal

Spooky Season Decorations: Simple decorations and a walk down Halloween lane.

I don’t know about you but Spooky Season is one of my favorites. I love getting our my Halloween decorations out and going to town decorating our front porch and our kitchen. Over the years, I have learned a very helpful decorating tip. Choose ONE high impact area in your home and decorate there. Doing this allows you to put the bulk of your decor in one place therefore giving the greatest effect. For me, this spot in my house is our kitchen. I focus on decorating my kitchen island as well as the vent hood above my stove. I may add some knick-knacks here and there to up the feel but those are the main areas. Let me show you what I did this year, you can recreate this yourself using things you already have in your kitchen cabinets!


All this took was a little creativity and black spray paint! This year I chose to make my centerpiece out of some bare branches. Send your kiddos on the hunt for the perfect ones. I chose to spray mine with high gloss black spray paint I had lying around. Once dry, I arranged the branches to my liking and used some floral wire to keep them placed how I wanted. You could also use a zip tie or string. Once wired I placed them in a Southern Living pitcher I had up in my cabinets. Then I chose to repurpose some candle sticks I had once used in my entryway. You can find lots of candle sticks on sale at thrift stores, add a little black spray paint and wallah... you’ve successfully added a little spooky effect. It would be very fun to add a little bit of cobwebs to the branches with a fake spider or two as well if you wanted to change it up a bit.


Over the years I have also learned to collect holiday decor once the holiday has passed. Im a big proponent of shopping sales for decorations and I routinely do so for all holidays. This skull was a steal last year from target and the Mudpie candy dish was a find from Dillard’s last year as well. I found the spooky eyeball gum balls at Target this year and decided to grab a few jars to keep my candy dish warm. As far as the rest of the decor goes, another skull placed underneath my cake dome near my stove, black and white striped hand towels and my light up Halloween Wreath complete this look (at night I turn on the orange lights by a simple switch on the wreath).


Holiday decorations in my home serve one major purpose. Little decorations and touches like this are all to bring my little guy some holiday joy. I don’t know about you, but as a child I LOVED when my mom would bring out the holiday decorations and for most of my childhood, especially before we had the grocery stores, she would deliver whimsy packed in the form of spider shaped trash bags filled with leaves in the front yard, front door decorations and sticky clings for my windows. These things are what I remember most about the Halloween holidays, even more so than trick or treating itself. It has always been a goal of mine since having a child to do the same for him. Yes, it may take a little effort... but the fact that he loves it so much makes it all worth it to me.




Our front porch is the second area that I like to decorate for every holiday. View the slider above to see how our porch has transitioned each year. Every year, I add or rearrange a few decorations for effect. The first picture is our porch this year, My main addition this year was Miss Skelly! I have been drooling over the skeletons for years and finally decided to add her this year. She came from Target and Drew picked out a light up witch hat for her. I decided to dress her up a bit with some old Halloween socks I had lying around from a previous year’s costume and thought I would let her borrow my leopard print Converse for the occasion too. As you can see, the witch legs are from years past (they were a Target find a few years ago and they sell similar ones every year), the metallic Jack O’ Lanterns in my pots are a find from Home Good last season (I turn them sideways when I transition my porch to Thanksgiving) and they have orange lights set on a timer that glow in the evening, the Hanging Skeleton came from Sumac Trading Co in Duncan last year (she had the most adorable one with a top hat this year, make sure to check out her shop for some great LOCAL seasonal decorations), I repurposed a wreath I had hanging out in my garage with some black spray paint and added a candy sign I found in the dollar bins at Target, and the silver pumpkin lantern at the end of my pumpkin pile is a find from TJMaxx two years ago (I also turn this lantern backwards for my Thanksgiving porch decorations as well). The key to most of my decorations is that I can use them over the years and for some of them I can use them for two seasons by making simple adjustments, like turning the pumpkins around from a plain pumpkin effect as opposed to their Jack O’ Lantern faces.


The last thing I use to dress up my porch are a variety of pumpkins, seasonal flowers and leftover greenery from my summer porch. This year I used traditional Jack O’ Lantern pumpkins, Cinderella pumpkins, mini pumpkins, Tiger stripe pumpkins, and small gourds from our grocery store orders. I also added in some large gourds, a green pumpkin, white pumpkin, and specialty pumpkin from GardenTown in Duncan Oklahoma to create my pumpkin piles. My assortment of Mums used in my porch planters and window box, seasonal cabbages in my window box, as well as my asparagus ferns in my porch planters also came from GardenTown in Duncan.


Have a pesky window box? Look no further than this simple trick. I have a fully West facing window box that I have a hard time keeping anything alive in, so this year I decided to add fake florals in it for my fall decorations. I got three bunches of hanging greenery and two large faux cabbages. I sprayed all heavily with canned polyurethane to make them weather and fade resistant. When dry, I arranged them in floral foam and then placed in my window box. I buried the floral foam with potting soil to give it a bit of weight and lastly I added a small sized Cinderella pumpkin for extra fall flair. This is a simple solution for a black thumb or a hot area on your home.


To round this post out, I thought I would share some of Drew and I’s Halloween costumes from years past if you‘re looking for a little last minute inspiration. All of Drew’s costumes were handmade or repurposed by me. This has always been something I’ve enjoyed doing but to be honest, they’ve always been easy to do. We love face paint and I have found that this often is Drew’s favorite part about his costumes. He loves some good face paint! I hope that you and your family enjoy the start of the holiday season and have a blast this Halloween! Please share what you and your family like to do to celebrate the holidays or how you like to decorate your home in the comments section! I would love to hear!








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