Halloween Window Decorating - 2014

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have so many fond memories surrounding the 31st day of October. When I was a kid we would visit my Grandma Mac (mom's mom) every year dressed up in our costumes, and with me having younger sisters I did it well beyond the appropriate tricker-treating age. (My last year out I was 21 and dressed as Paul Stanley from Kiss.)

Grandma Mac used to decorate her house in grand fashion, give us extra treats for stopping by, and every year she answered the door dressed as a witch. She tried to convince us she was a witch every day of the year, and that she only showed us the hat and broom on Halloween. (I honestly thought if I waited up long enough if I'd see her fly past the moon. Probably until I was at least 12.)

My mom continued Grandma Mac's tradition and decorated my childhood house for every holiday, including usually forgotten ones like Thanksgiving and Easter. Although, in my opinion, her showmanship was best at Christmas and Halloween. So as soon as I bought my own house I couldn't wait to carry on the tradition of decorating for Halloween. Especially seeing Grandma Mac's health doesn't allow for crazy decorating or witch playing, and my Mom has found less time to do it herself as us kids have gotten older.

This project contains items bought at the local Family Dollar. I'm showing you what you can do to the outside front of your house for under $30. *(see note below)

Here are a few of the things I bought. Note they all say a dollar on them :) 

Tip: Car window clings seem to stick better and the colors are more vibrant.

If using windowing clings make sure you have access to the outside of your window. Most new windows fold down so you can clean the outside. The window clings only have one sticky side so in order for the image to show correctly you have to put it on the outside of the window. This also prevents any animals you have from being able to eat the decorations.

If you can't access the outsides of your windows then you can use a more traditional paper cutout like the ones above. These are ones I saved from last year. I like to save what I can each year in order to build up my collection and keep things cost effective.

When building the windows I like to have a theme in mind for each one. That helps me decide what decorations to pick and keeps it from looking cluttered. This is my Grandma Mac window :)

Here is my spider theme that you'll see I later added a skeleton grim reaper to below.

I like to decorate the top windows as well, and since those don't fold out, I used the paper cutouts.

I always have a door cover and this year I really liked the "Do Not Enter" as it matched nicely with my wooden signs and the caution tape I like putting on my garage door.

*Please note that I bought my wooden signs last year. They were around $10 each at my local CVS and I didn't include them in my cost of decorating this year.

AND NOW ONTO THE BIG REVEAL OF THE WHOLE HOUSE....

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Ta-da! 

Hope you enjoyed my Halloween decorating tips. 

Have yourself a Spooky day on October 31st!