With Halloween right around the corner, now is the time to decorate the exterior and interior of your home. While you can purchase a number of décor items from craft and big box stores, there’s nothing, in my opinion, better than natural Halloween décor.
With the recent cold snap it’s likely the summer plants in your urns are done for the season, so adding traditional fall plants such as mums and kale are a great way to start decorating for Halloween. Add some ornamental peppers and tall grasses for interest and for something really unusual, tuck a few gourds or small pumpkins amongst the foliage for added visual appeal. For some tips and tricks on how to decorate you fall urn, check out this video on YouTube.
Corn stalks, hay bales and leaves always look great around the front door and make a great background for and place to set your pumpkins. Visit Pinterest for hundreds of ideas.
Speaking of pumpkins – there’s a design trend that’s seeing the end of the Jack and simply using the pumpkin as a lantern as part of your natural Halloween décor. These are easy to carve – start by hallowing out your pumpkin, then use different size drill bits in either a pre-determined pattern or randomly. When your candle is put inside they light up beautifully, as seen here.
If you’re tired of the traditional orange pumpkin, white pumpkins are extremely popular and so are a new variety known as Cinderella pumpkins, which are varied in colour and bumpy all over – like an over-grown gourd. These don’t even need to be carved to look good.
For those of you looking to avoid any type of carving, painting a pumpkin is a fantastic idea. A coat of chalk paint creates a matte finish that can be adorned with glitter, studs or other jewels with hot glue. A coat of spray paint to cover the entire pumpkin is a great base, then pour a little metallic paint on the top and have it drip down the sides for a classy look that will really catch the eye of any Halloween visitors.
Other pumpkin trends include painting the pumpkin and using a pen to draw on the popular mud cloth pattern, which is another great way to decorate without having to carve the pumpkin. Start with your chalk or spray paint base then use pens to create the trendy geometric pattern around the circumference of the pumpkin.
Many people are picking up on the catch phrase/signage trend on their pumpkins this year and are including cheeky, cute or inspirational messages on their painted pumpkins. Again, start with your chalk or spray paint base – and speaking of paint, go with a pastel colour, it’s very trendy – then either free-hand your message with a marker or use a stencil and paint to stipple your message on your pumpkin.
When thinking about lighting, continue your natural Halloween décor and use beeswax candles, which, aside from being all natural, are natural air purifiers and burn well both inside and outside – including in your pumpkin.
