Decorate For Halloween With Vintage Inspired Items

A fan favorite when it comes to Halloween décor is using pumpkins. Work with materials from your local dollar store to create a jack o' lantern craft. Grab a pack of plastic wine glasses and use craft glue to cover the top of one glass. Put the glass inside the middle of a plastic planter. Use craft glue to cover the open part of an unused dustpan handle. Place it on top of the glass's stem. For a sleek look, use white spray paint to cover the planter. Add plastic bags inside for support.

Stacked pumpkin decorations are a classic, and here's another festive idea: Gather five faux small pumpkins and draw faces on each one to be craved with a knife. Paint each pumpkin with white acrylic paint. Take two of the painted pumpkins and use a knife to make a cut through the top right and bottoms. With two more painted pumpkins, use a knife to make cuts through the top left and bottom. The remaining pumpkin won't have cuts on the top. Each pumpkin will have a cut on its back. On the handle, stack pumpkins in a left-right hole pattern with the pumpkin without top holes on top. Take Christmas stringed lights, and place a handful in each pumpkin's mouth using masking tape. Place natural raffia inside the planter. 

An easy way to get ready for the Halloween season is to find holiday-appropriate throw pillows. For Halloween, search for black and orange pillows with contrasting patterns, according to Practical Perfection. For those who don't want anything too kitschy, find throw pillows that have more subtle patterns, but still feature autumnal tones. Look for striped, chevron, or polka-dotted pillows to work with solid colors. Avoid Halloween novelty pillows that have too many patterns or words. It's best to go simple instead of using pillows with outlandish designs. Decorate with Halloween accessories around the pillows instead of treating them like the focal point.

These pillows would work on an entryway bench or on a living room sofa. They would also look pleasant propped up against windowsills. Want to go cutesy? Place this Handmade Cute Retro Vintage Kitsch Halloween Witch Pillow from Lisa's Creative Designs on an outdoor porch bench as a retro statement piece. Depending on how big the outdoor porch bench is, a handful of retro-inspired pillows could be placed on top to enhance the Halloween look.

According to Square Signs, Halloween banners are a fun way to spice up the indoors or the outdoors of the home for the season. Find a banner with a cheeky phrase and tack it onto a wall in the living room above a tiered table with black candles on top and decorative Halloween pillows on the bottom. Situate bat decals around the wall to make it look like the bats are flying out of the banner. For the outside, hang a banner on a fence in the backyard and put decorative skulls beneath the banner on the ground. Decorate a child's bedroom with retro cartoon banners featuring ghosts like Casper, or this Halloween Glitter Ghost Banner from Etsy. The banner could be tacked on a wall next to bookshelves featuring cutesy ceramic Halloween figures.

Craft a Halloween banner featuring creepy Halloween creatures (via Organize & Decorate Everything). Gather various colors of cardstock to make owls, candy corn, ghouls, pumpkins, black cats, and Frankenstein's monster out of triangular-shaped paper. These creations could be clothes pinned to a piece of twine that's attached to the front of a living room fireplace. Go vintage scary with moons and witches galore with this Vintage Halloween Cutout Banner from Etsy. Halloween banners look fine by themselves attached to a fireplace mantel. You could also consider adding a Halloween runner on top of the fireplace's ledge with a few faux pumpkins. 

Host a grown-up Halloween dinner party by setting up the kitchen table for the holiday, as stated by Laura Lily. When decorating a Halloween tabletop, try to incorporate three to four colors that mesh well with each other. Oranges go well with black, but try to play with other colors as well. Poppy shades of slime green and sassy hot pinks with royal purples are great colors for plates, dishes, and silverware when setting up tablecloths, napkins, and plates. Why not go for a simple spider theme? Check out a home décor store or Halloween store that sells black lace spiderweb tablecloths. Purchase silver or gold-colored spider napkin holders. The silver and gold will tone down the brighter dishware colors.

Skeleton designs are popular during Halloween. Check out this CirCleO Happy Halloween Retro Dancing Skull Table Runner and Placemats Set from Amazon. Look for chalices and goblets that feature skulls or skeletons for an extra creepy vibe. Silverware in metallic sheens would work nicely placed on top of the placemats. Keep neutral dishes and bowls in shades of cream or ivory. Add candlelight with black tapered candles placed around the table. Find brass vintage candle holders for rustic, masculine tones.

Craft a couple of vintage-inspired Halloween candy bowls out of paper mache, as demonstrated by Salinda Nichols on YouTube. Blow up a couple of balloons to about average size. Concoct a mixture of ½ cup of water and ½ cup of flour in a bowl for the papier mache solution. Grab old newspaper sheets and tear the sheets into long strips. Once the newspaper is torn into strips, dip the strips in the solution and cover the balloons with the wet strips. After everything is dry, it's time to do a little research! Look online to see what vintage Halloween décor looked like in the past. It could look something like this Ino Schaller Paper Mache Pumpkin from The Well Appointed House. Take another papier mache balloon and use black, yellow, and red paint to create the visage of a black cat.

 You can also use this method to make papier mache bowls — just leave half of the balloon bare, and pop it once the papier mache dries, leaving a bowl shape. Then, paint it however you wish! Once the paint has dried, fill them with candy and display them wherever you need a touch of vintage Halloween charm. Mix different art media forms by having papier mache Halloween candy bowls decorated amongst modern plastic and ceramic Halloween character bowls. Stack biggest to the smallest left to right along a living room windowsill, or along the kitchen island. 

Make your own vintage-inspired moon Halloween decorations by crafting, as noted by Up All Night DIY. Craft a moon sculpture by putting air-dry clay over a Styrofoam ball. Don't forget to make cheeks by rolling two balls of clay, and placing the clay balls two inches above the bottom of the Styrofoam clay ball and one inch across. To create craters, use the back of a paintbrush and make dots all over the Styrofoam clay ball. Make a nose in between the two eyes with the back of the paintbrush as well. Once the clay has fully dried, use white craft paint to cover the clay moon's head. Sketch and paint eyes as well. Paint and wrap garland around the hat for an additional festive touch. The moon sculpture would look pleasant amongst other crafted vintage-inspired Halloween items displayed on a dresser or everyday table.

Another moon-related craft would be a moon on a stand. Print out a vintage moon face to place on top of a round flat white board. Place transfer paper underneath the printed vintage moon face. Grab a pencil to trace the moon's facial features. Put the transfer paper aside, and use gray and charcoal paint to shade in spots and color craters. Look around at craft stores to purchase a gray, blue, or black mini wooden stand to represent the nighttime. Find a small wooden stick, and glue one end to the stand and one end to the rounded board. The moon stand could act as a centerpiece on counters, on an outdoor porch table, or on a desk in a bedroom. Working with vintage-inspired Halloween accessories is fun, and can be worked into most home design aesthetics.