Trash to Treat: Candy Corn Pumpkin Stands

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love candy. Halloween is a tempting time for me because it ends up being such an all out treat fest. I decided this year that I wasn't buying candy for trick or treaters until the morning of Halloween because if it's in the house, I'm eating it.

So it's no surprise that when I looked at this black Ikea FNISS trash can, I saw an upside candy corn. Can you see it?

Trash bin upside down plus orange, white, and yellow paint, equals candy corn!

The trash cans were already being used for plant stands so my candy obsession is only partially to blame. Over the summer I bought two for $1.49 each and used them as stands for ferns on either side of the front door. They're just the right height for our entry and much cheaper than any other planter or stand available.

I knew they could double as pumpkin stands for our carved jack-o-lanterns and again as stands for our fall mums.

Because the can is a series of rings that act as a guide, painting the three sections was easy and I rolled it on without taping. 

I'm already planning my red and white striped candy cane Christmas tree bases!

Striped Skeleton Halloween Wreath: Using Spray Paint on Styrofoam

Over the summer I bought a styrofoam ring to make a life preserver style wreath for the door but just never got around to it so after a coat of orange spray paint it was ready to use for Halloween.

Last year I had a wooden skeleton hanging on our door but it blew around in the wind and banged into the door so loudly that there's no way it was going back on there this year.  I decided a 'quiet' wreath out of styrofoam would be better. Black and orange spray paint with polka dots can be considered quiet, right?

After the coat of orange spray paint dried, I taped off stripes. When I had them lined up how I wanted, I went around and really pressed the tape edges down because I thought there might be a lot of bleed through with painted foam.

Here's the painted wreath. It looked like Tigger! (Anyone need an idea for a Tigger party?)
To finish the painted wreath I went through my stash of Halloween gear and found skeletons and bats.

Because they open down the middle and never seemed practical as boxes that would hold anything I decided to split these cardboard skeleton boxes and use them for accents on the wreath. I covered them with a couple of coats of black spray paint.

I topped the wreath with a paper bat and tied a polka dot ribbon on the bottom.

Corsage pins served double duty and both fasten my spooky flare onto the wreath and give the bat and skeletons eyes to glare at the trick-or-treaters coming to the door.

Now I'm ready to start the rest of our Halloween crafting and decorating!

Spooky Black and White Halloween Mantel

Though it's been months since moving to our new house many boxes still sit unopened in the garage so I was happy to open the one with my fall decorations knowing that they had a place to be unpacked.

Because it's still a few weeks until Halloween, and it's 86 degrees outside, and feels nothing like fall, I used black and white decorations for the mantel.  My Thanksgiving/Autumn decorations are mainly oranges and browns, and in an effort to avoid looking at those colors until Christmas, the black and white spooky mantel was born.

I love the way all of the black and white looks with the silver metallics of the decorations and the gold mirror I rescued and had restored a few years ago.

The antlers that I painted white look like bony fingers holding up the black cat.

I've used my same white painted branch for an Easter egg tree, a Christmas snowflake ornament holder, and here, as a bat tree that throws the best spooky shadow on the wall behind it at night.

After Halloween, I'll switch out some of the black and white for more of my brown, orange, and green autumn decor for Thanksgiving. I hope that by then, Georgia weather will have changed enough to make me feel just a hint of what fall in NY feels like. But for now, it's the perfect time of year to have a black and white mantel.