My Halloween Mantel on a Budget

I’m stepping out of my comfort zone here with you today. :)

I am showing you an actual place in my house that I have . . . gasp . . .decorated.

I know. That’s not my thing. I’ve never claimed to be a decorator.
I’m a  . . . well I don’t know what I am but I know what I’m not.

But I’ve decided to be brave and show you my Halloween Mantel.
We’ve never really decorated for Halloween before,
just some pumpkins and things scattered around for Fall.
But there is soooo much inspiration out there that I got caught up. 

I knew I wanted to do something fun, but our budget doesn’t run to lavish holiday displays.
So fun and cheap were my criteria.
I think I did pretty good but I’d love to hear what you think.

Some disclaimers -
1. It’s Cloudy in So Cal. So these pictures are a combo of flash and not much sunlight. It goes against everything I believe about blog pictures but I didn’t have a lot of options.
2. Did I mention I’m not a decorator??

Brace yourself. There are lots of pictures here.
Click on any you want to see better for the enlarged images.
I’ve included “before” pictures when applicable so you can see where I started.

Ok. Down to specifics.

My favorite thing on the mantel – the mirror.

I started out with a 3.00 mirror from a Garage Sale.

I taped off the mirror and spray painted the frame black.
I left it kind of splotchy because I didn’t want it to look too new.

I found an image I wanted to use behind the mirror – from the Graphics Fairy of course.

I flipped the mirror over and printed out an enlarged image of the woman for sizing.
I sprayed Oven Cleaner on the back of the mirror to remove the silvering.
If you’d like the whole tutorial for this process, click here.

 After 4 applications of oven cleaner, the center of the mirror was clear.

 Girls (and guys) PLEASE wear gloves if you do this.
I did not listen to Mr. F.T. even though he nicely suggested it.
As I mentioned on FB – my fingernails are jacked up after this. Stained dark brown.
From who knows what chemical.
Learn from my mistakes. ;)

 I did listen to one of Mr. F.T.’s suggestions though. He recommended adding a skull image over the woman’s face to make it a little spookier.
(Though I don’t think he used the actual word “spookier”.)

Here’s the close up of the mirror with the skull image added.

 I have one of those little battery tea lights flickering behind this at night. It looks great!

Karen from the Graphic’s Fairy had generously allowed me to share the altered image with you.
Click here if you’d like to download her face with the skull added.  

The Candlesticks I picked up for $5 for all of them at a garage sale too. Spray Painted them all glossy black.

The Vase of Skulls are dressed up Dollar Store Items. My daughter glittered the skulls up for me.

 I put them in the hurricane with netting at the bottom for filler and glittery ribbon in a big bow.

 The bowl of black roses started out like this . . .

 I spray painted the bowl silver and the roses black.

Inside the frame is a crow I traced onto black scrapbook paper and framed over a pink background. (It had to have pink!)
The crow came from here. I gave him a rhinestone eye for a  little bling. 

I got the idea for the metallic pumpkins from Roo at Nice Girl Notes.
The pumpkins and big flocked spider (sorry Cindy) came from the Dollar Store. Yeah!
(Cindy has an intense hatred for all things flocked)

I found a couple of things at Michael’s I couldn’t live without.

The Terror This Way sign was 4.60 on sale and the kitty was the most expensive thing at 7.00. But really. When you see a giant purple glitter kitty how can you pass that up????

The mice running around the bottom are silhouettes from Martha and the black runner thing came from the Dollar Store too.

So my mantel cost $27.00 not including what I had on hand.
And we all know that stash materials don’t count right?

I was going for Disney rather than Night of the Living Dead.

I want to hear what you think!!
Advice for a decorating newbie is much appreciated. :) 

Update:

My Mantel made the Top 10!!!! (Insert Happy Dancing)

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