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
So cool! Your kids must be thrilled! Those googly eyes are a scary touch! But it’s all so good. Here’s to more free time and a prop closet! Room? Barn??
Okay, me again, back to say that your “inside” Halloween really worked on me! Our family room now has a black metal spider web with a huge black spider (thank you, Michaels), a library table with a tableau that includes a painting of a deer skull (sounds creepy but somehow it’s not), a glass dome with a skull and another with a crow (thank you for encouraging vintage), a black glass pumpkin (thank you, Target) that’s especially pretty at night with LED lights tucked inside and a bare black branch (thank you, Target dollar aisle). I’ve long done “fall” decor that morphs into Thanksgiving but this is the first time I’ve leaned into Halloween and it’s all thanks (I guess!) to you.
I love this, all looks so good. I had great fun decorating our house for Halloween way before it became a thing here in Australia. We had a plastic cat similar to yours many years ago for Halloween and I had it just inside our sliding doors, it actually scared away the neighbour’s cat that would come up on our deck.
TBH…it’s still not really a ‘thing’ here.
Only marketing madness.
The googly eyes are a stroke of Halloween genius
I love these vintage Halloween areas! They are festive, fun and exciting!
Your green couches lend themselves to a Halloween decor very nicely.
I love the dead people and Birdie’s googly eyes! How do you hang them temporarily? Or do you already have nails in because you hang other stuff year-round (outside of the gallery rail obvs).
The googly eyes make tge portraits of dead people much more palatable!
Genius!
Love it all! I need to up my game when it comes to decorating.
Just a word of caution about your pumpkins, keep on eye on them especially since you have them on furniture and the wood floors. Learn from my mistake of having pumpkins on wood! It doesn’t always end well. The worst offenders are carved pumpkins, we carved a pumpkin and the next day it had turned black inside and left a wet mess everywhere.
Which podcast and episode?!
BATTERY OPERATED CANDLES?!? Now that’s scary!
Ha!
Man, never thought I’d say this, but I need a prop closet filled with portraits of dead people. I love these spooky vignettes so much. Well done Emily!
CUUUUUTE!!! I love this SO much! The perfect vintage Halloween vibe for your gorgeous farm house.
Could not love this more! The white dress gives a real Haunted Mansion vibe!
W E L C O M E mat hits different now. The foreboding!
Whaaaat???!!! This is beyond! Every vignette is so good!
This is so beautiful, spooky and tasteful (hard to achieve …). One caveat: please do not use the fake spiderwebs and netting outdoors, as birds can get caught in it. Thank you!
This is one of the coolest posts I’ve seen in a long time! Gotta get those kiddos loving the scary and icky from a young age! My adult kids have proudly carried on their mama’s over the top traditions! I’m off to find googly eyes!