Vintage Style Halloween Decorating

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Halloween is upon us! To tell you the truth, it’s not my favorite holiday, but I have gotten into decorating for it since having children. They love Halloween. I try to find a balance of just enough cute and just enough spooky (and just enough vintage) to make us all happy.

Today, I am sharing with you the spooky-ish, vintage style Halloween vignette, I decorated in our living room. We don’t have a mantel above our fireplace in this room, but we do have a bookshelf that works in a similar fashion.

I often miss the salvaged mantel from our old house. It was one of my popular features here on the blog, but I sold it on Marketplace a few years ago since we have two fireplaces in our new home, and it didn’t fit anywhere. We do have an actual 1970’s style mantel on the brick fireplace in our back den but I am still working on painting and refinishing that one. I will definitely share it here when it’s ready!

Last year, we bought this cubby style bookshelf on Amazon (in Salt Oak finish) to hold our children’s books (I am a book hoarder…even with children’s books 🤷‍♀️), and the top works great as a decorating space. So for now, this bookshelf serves as my “mantel” (that little hands can’t reach! Very important with a two year old wandering around who is sure to get into anything he can find).

I threw this shelf styling together pretty last minute. That seems to be how my holiday decorating whims go. We only purchased one new item for it, which was the decorative skull. My 9 year old son, Owen, found it at Michael’s and was obsessed. It was justified by being more “scientific” with the bone names identified on it rather than gory, so we took it home with us.

I always include vintage books when decorating a vignette, so I found all similarly colored dark ones for this. The more dilapidated the better. Starting with those, some stacked and some lined up, I added a couple of yoga/meditating skeletons and a sculptural tree. The tree is something my husband had before we were married. It always finds it’s way out at Halloween.

The colors were mostly black and off white throughout, including two WoodWick candles my mother gifted me from the Yankee Candle Store. I can’t get enough of wood wick candles and these ones smell amazing! They are White Honey and and a Warm Woods Trilogy. I love hearing that crackle sound while they burn. So cozy!

The opposite side, got some spooky cool black owls from my mom, and a little white pumpkin from a recent trip to a local pumpkin patch.

Around the clock on the wall, I sticky tacked several black paper bats (also from my mother who has shops on Etsy – she is super crafty with her Cricut Cutter!). And a vintage style paper moon is spying from behind. I found him at The Graphic’s Fairy and use him every year!

And last but not least…some sneaky little rats are hiding out on our bookshelf! Eeeek!

(I didn’t like their beady red eyes, so I spray painted over them black, much to my 9 year old’s dismay 🤷‍♀️)

I hope that you all have a safe and happy Halloween if you participate! We will be enjoying a day of pumpkin carving with the grandparents (a tradition we started when the kids were small), and then trick or treating around the neighborhood. Hopefully the weather cooperates and we have a great time. It will be Fletcher’s first experience walking door to door. It’s always fun to see the littlest ones in costume. I’m going to try to wrangle him into a Yoda costume…but we will see how that goes!

Till next time…Happy Halloween weekend!