Decorating With Dollar Tree

We decorated our entire front entry with 35 $1 Dollar Tree items

I’ve always loved decorating for holidays.  It’s even more fun now that my kids share in the excitement and we can make it a family tradition.  When Dollar Tree offered to send me a box of Halloween surprises, I couldn’t wait to see what they had to offer for decorating our home.  Their challenge was to create something ghoulish to share, and I decided to expand the challenge to decorating our entire home entry using these Dollar Tree items (and a few easy crafts that you can do, too).  See how we made our DIY items below.

My kids are both pre-school aged and their favorite part of Halloween, other than the costumes and candy, is the “spooky” atmosphere.  That’s what we went for with our decorating.  We created a spooky entrance to our home, 100% with items you can find at Dollar Tree!  Some items were combined for simple crafts and you can create these same decorations yourself with the How-To’s below.

The kids helped me design a ghoulish wreath sure to spook visitors.  We paired our DIY spooky Halloween wreath with a pre-made sign & handling skeleton.  My kids especially loved the cat, jack-o-lantern, and ghost decorations.  My older daughter was in stitches when we paired a grave stone with a skeleton hand and “cute little” rat.

Can you believe that these decorations are only $1 each?  I couldn’t make this sign for $1!

We recently added a guard rail around our front side-walk for safety and it was the perfect spot to add Dollar Tree spider webs.

The lantern is also dollar tree and will light up at night, casting a spooky glow on the grave below.

I mean, how perfectly ghoulish is this grave, skeleton hand, and rat combo?  Chloe was seriously on to something here.  It cracked me up when she showed a neighbor friend the “cute little rat”.

Not all of our decorations are super spooky, these wire frame Dollar Tree decorations capture the “cute” side of Halloween.  For both of these mini-scenes, we grouped items in threes since groupings of 3’s are a fairly fool-proof design method.

On the opposed side of our front porch, we placed another grouping of 3 items.  I loved the creepy crow mounted in a skeleton.  My 3 year old keeps borrowing the hat for her dolls to wear and my 2 year old is mesmerized by the black, glittery jack-o-lantern.  It lights up and changes colors.

Another more “cute” item was this jack-o-lantern scare crow.  We sat him on some nesting boxes perfect for Halloween treats, which we will re-use later to deliver some homemade Halloween goodies.

I love the look all together.  We have a fairly small porch, but we still managed to set up several little “scenes” to look at, which the kids LOVE.

The spooky decorations don’t stop at the front door.  Inside, we continued decorating our entry buffet table with Dollar Tree items including 3 simple crafts you can do yourself on a tight budget.

Inside, Holiday guests are welcomed with a ghoulish floral arrangement, a sparkly pumpkin, candy corn, and some cute ready-made Dollar Tree decorations.

We made this floral arrangement and it’s really easy to do.  A How-To is below.  We spruced up the Dollar Tree pumpkin in a very Remodelicious way with a bit of spray glitter.  More on that below as well.

Our third Dollar Tree entry project used dollar tree candy corn & items from around the house… a re-used glass dish left over from a party years ago (you may have recently seen it used at Cora’s Farm-themed birthday party) and a flameless candle.

On the right side of the display, in another grouping of three, are 3 pre-made Dollar Tree items.  The jack-o-lantern is adorable while the bottle of Lizard Legs is creepy.  That photo may look like an old family port raid in a festive frame at first, but as you walk by, the bride and groom transform into skeletons!  I’d like ego add that I saw this item elsewhere for much more than $1.

How did we do in our challenge to decorate for Halloween using only Dollar Tree items?

Dollar Tree is a great source for Holiday Decorating…

• Everything’s $1….So Everybody Leaves Happy.
• For more holiday craft ideas, visit:  www.ILeaveHappy.com
• Dollar Tree is your one-stop shop for everything you need for a Fall or Halloween party…for all your favorite little goblins, or a Ghouls Night Out
• Dollar Tree has everything you need to make Halloween magic…and everything’s just $1

Now for your How-to’s!

How to Make a Ghoulish Halloween Wreath

Using Dollar Tree Finds

1. We used:
   1. Foam Wreath Form
   2. Scull
   3. Creepy Cloth
   4. Purple ribbon
   5. Spider webbing
   6. Torantula
   7. Crow
   8. Left-over Rose from our floral project (below)
      + Hot glue, toothpick, nail that we had on-hand
2. Hot glue a toothpick or similar item into the hole at the base of the Dollar Tree Scull
3. Set aside to cool
4. Wrap the wreath form in purple ribbon, overlapping slightly
5. Fold over the end and hot-glue
   We did not use all of the ribbon, save the remainder for step 12.
6. Wrap the ribbon-covered wreath form in spider web & add the included spiders, hot-gluing if necessary.
   You’ll only need a small amount, a little goes a LONG way.
7. Use a small nail to poke through the ribbon and make a hole at the top center of the wreath
8. Drape the black creepy cloth over the scull, poking the toothpick through the cloth, and insert the toothpick into the pre-made nail hole.
9. Hot glue all around the toothpick, both under and over the creepy cloth.  If needed, re-use the nail behind the scull for stability using more hot glue.
10. Add the Dollar Tree crow to the bottom right of the wreath using the attached wire.  It should be able to poke through the ribbon and into the foam.  Hot glue if necessary.
11. Hot glue the Dollar Tree tarantula onto the top left wreath & a Halloween flower onto the top right.
12. Tie the remainder of the purple ribbon into a bow and hot-glue onto the bottom front of the wreath.

How to Make a Ghoulish Halloween Floral Arrangement

Using Dollar Tree Finds

We used:

• A left-over vase
• Dollar Tree Floral Moss (we ended up using only 1 bag)
• Dollar Tree Eye Balls
• Dollar Tree Halloween Faux Roses
• Dollar Tree Orange & Black Ribbon

1. Place floral moss in the bottom of the base in a mound.
2. Add a couple of eyes to the outside, having a mound in place will help keep them in place.  Add more moss.
3. Keep adding eyes and moss until the vase is full.
4. Add roses.  They should easily stick into the moss without much effort.
5. Tie the ribbon around the vase and cut the ends in a jagged zig-zag.

How to Make a Candy Corn Halloween Centerpiece

Using Dollar Tree Finds

Use any dish you have on-hand and any simple candles.  This is a great way to use a stash of old candles.

1. Place the candle at the center of the dish
2. Surround with candy corn

I used a fairly large dish and used two full bags of candy corn.

How to Make a Sparkly Dollar Tree Pumpkin

Most people would decorate with this Dollar Tree pumpkin as-is, but we decided to give it the Remodelicious treatment with a coat of orange glitter spray to create a GLAM version.

Now it’s your turn

Get out and start decorating!  The decor items from this post are all from Dollar Tree.  We’d love to see your creations!  You can upload your photos to the comments section below or send them in to aria@remodelicious.com to be featured here on this page.