Decorating for Halloween doesn’t have to be scary (pun intended). It’s an easy time to put a dent in the budget, but since it’s only a short time till the next holiday season, we really don’t want to spend a lot. Here’s a couple of our favorite affordable tips and tricks to add a little spookiness into our Fall decor.
We love to browse our local Dollar Tree store to check out their seasonal decor. They always have great Halloween items like Rats, Bats, Artificial Pumpkins, Spider 
s and Spider Webbing.
Trader Joe’s is another local favorite. They have the nicest selection of pumpkins. Love the varieties, sizes, and colors. Have you seen the pumpino plant branches in their floral department? They are fresh stems that have pumpinos growing on them. Pumpinos look like mini pumpkins and are beautiful as a table centerpiece, mantel display or anywhere. **Artificial pumpino branches are a great option too since you can reuse them each Fall. (We have a link to some online shopping options on our blog). We usually have all our pumpkins and pumpino stems set up for our Fall decor so it’s more about updating them with touch ups and a few accessories.
A fast and easy way to make your pumpkins a little ghoulish for Halloween is a black sharpie marker. Using the marker, color the stem and draw lines along the pumpkin’s grooves. You can draw shapes or letters too. Line up a row of pumpkins with each one with a letter written on the front to create a message: H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N or 3 large pumpkins B O O.
Another sharpie touchup idea, color battery operated tea light candles black. Place them on pulled spider webbing across tables with a few dollar store rats. Works great on fireplace mantels and on the front porch too. Whatever you choose, enjoy your space and Halloween.
Carol and Randi, the FruGirls, are local home stagers and decorators. You can also find them blogging about many other ways to live an elegant life for less at www.frugelegance.com. FrugElegance is where Frugal and Elegance come together.