#Second time carving a pumpkin and FIRST time making my own stencil!!

[doink-boink]

Carved my own Aviva pumpkin!!

Stencil I made and used in the reblogs :D

[beels-burger-babe]

Demon's First Pumpkin

***After all the spookiness it's time for a small relief of fluff! This is actually one of the first Diavolo-centered fics I've written and it's the first Teen MC fic we've had in a while! I hope you all enjoy it 🎃❤️ -B***

Summary: When MC learns that the all mighty Demon Prince Diavolo has never carved a pumpkin in his life, they immediately get to work on amending that fact. Ft. Teen! MC and DiaLuci

"MC, this isn't something that you need to disturb Lord Diavolo with,"

"Wrong. It is spooky season and thus it is an emergency level catastrophe that I must bother Dia with."

The prince in question perked up his head as he heard two of his favourite voices approach his lonely office. He instantly brushed aside the documents he had been working on, and took a quick glance into the reflection of the metal plaque on his desk to adjust his tie and hair.

"Well, we'll just have to see what he thinks!" He heard you smugly shout on the other side of the door before a rhythmic knock rang through his office.

"Come in!" He happily called out as he sat just a little bit straighter in his chair.

He couldn't help but smile as you proudly marched into his office with a tired and slightly irked-looking Lucifer trailing behind you.

"Dia!" He quickly opened his arms, wrapping you up in his large embrace as you charged toward him.

The sound of his hearty laugh filled the room as he spun you around. "MC! It's been awhile since you've visited!"

Lucifer sighed from where he handsomly brooded by the doorway. "My apologies, my lord. I tried to explain to them that you were busy, but they were insistent."

Diavolo smiled as he set you back on your feet. "Must have been a rather important issue then."

You nodded enthusiastically as Lucifer ran a hand down his face. "Yes, it is! There're no pumpkins in the Devildom!"

The prince's eyebrows narrowed as he glanced warily over to Lucifer. "No ... pumpkins?"

"Large orange gourds that humans like mutilate and allow to rot away rather than actually eating them," Lucifer groaned. "It's pointless."

A dramatic gasp came from your mouth as you clutched a hand to your chest. "It is not pointless!" You shouted. "First of all, we call them jack-o-lanterns! Second of all, it's a bonding tradition that we do in the fall with our friends and family and use them as lights and decorations. Plus, it's not all waste! You can always roast the pumpkin seeds and eat those as snacks!"

With every word that you spoke, Diavolo felt his eyes get wider and wider and a flood of childlike wonder, that he always felt towards human culture, fill him.

The same thrill that sparked in his heart the day he came up with the exchange program was now a raging inferno.

"That sounds incredible!" He cheered as he grabbed you by the shoulders — your eyes mirrored the excitement sparkling in his own golden stare. He looked towards his door, where he knew his butler was dutifully working nearby. "Barbatos!" The teal-coloured demon appeared out of nowhere. "I need you to go to the human world and get three of their best pumpkins!"

"I'll see to it, my lord," he was gone as quickly as he arrived.

Lucifer's head whipped around to him, his eyebrows narrowed in suspicion. "Three? Why do you need three?"

"For you, of course!" He flashed the demon his brightest smile. "MC said this is meant to be a bonding experience between friends, and there is no one else I can think of to share this with than you and MC!"

Lucifer glowered at the prince for a moment before a heavy groan came from him. "If that's what you wish, my lord."

Diavolo's heart fluttered with elation as he turned to you. "What else is required for this 'jack-o-lantern' making?"

You leaned against his desk with a sharp grin, "Let me tell you, Dia. It is the best. There's spooky music, candy, and you can even print out stencils to help you with your design if you'd like," you pressed a smug hand to your chest as you lifted your chin. "Personally, I like to freehand," your eyes playfully drifted over to the grumpy Avatar of Sin in the corner, "but there's no shame in needing a little help."

Lucifer stiffened at your words, and Diavolo knew that you had the demon exactly where you wanted him. "Well," he spoke coolly, "We'll just have to see about that."

In no less than an hour, the three of you were in the freshly decorated dining hall with a live orchestra playing only the spookiest of classical music and freshly picked pumpkins sitting in front of you.

You were bouncing with giddiness at the whole thing, and though Lucifer tried to hide, Diavolo could tell that even he was enjoying the atmosphere.

The prince clapped his hands as he looked down at the gourd. "Now, MC! What next? How do we do this?"

Lucifer eyed you carefully as you picked up one of the paring knives on the table and twirled it in your hand. "Now you cut the top off and scoop out its guts!" A twinge of pride ran through his demonic soul at the murderous glee shining on your face.

Dia let out a hearty laugh as he picked up his own knife and stabbed it deep into the top of the pumpkin with a single clean motion. "And you're sure this is a human tradition? It's quite vicious, though that does seem to be the fun of it!" His smile widened as a spray of pumpkin juice flung across his face — It had been too long since he'd been able to fully enjoy a good stabbing.

Lucifer, on the other hand, elegantly picked up his own knife and went to work with the precision of a surgeon. Each cut was done with meticulous care and patience.

You snorted at the look of concentration on his face as you ripped off the top of your own pumpkin.

The demon rose an eyebrow at you, "Do you have an issue with my technique MC?"

You shook your head as you rolled up your sleeve and buried your arm elbow deep into the vegetable. "Nope. You're just slow, old man,"

Diavolo's eyes widened at your action as he looked down at his own pumpkin and quickly mimicked you. He couldn't help but giggle as the stringy, gooey insides of the pumpkin clung to his fingers as he easily ripped from its flesh with a harsh pull — he had greatly underestimated just how fun this would be.

Lucifer's nose wrinkled at the two of you. "If I'm doing this, I am going to be doing this to the highest standard. I want to ensure that the top hole isn't so large that the pumpkin will cave in on itself, but also not so small that it's inconvenient to remove its innards."

Diavolo smirked as he flicked some of the pumpkin on his hands at his right-hand man — Lucifer stiffed as a glob guts stuck to his cheek. "Come on, Lucifer! Loosen up! This is meant to be fun! Let your inner demon run loose and just enjoy it!" he grinned and proudly held up his messy hands.

"Yeah, Luci! This isn't an order or a task. This is just having fun with friends! You remember what that's like, right?" You goaded with a mischievous smirk on your face.

Lucifer grumbled under his breath as he carefully rolled up the sleeves of his silk shirt. The light caught on his blade as he raised it high above his head before passionately driving it down into the gourd.

Dia's breath caught in his throat at the feral fire in Lucifer's crimson eyes as you whooped in victory.

From there, it hadn't taken very long for the three of you to finish preparing your pumpkins for your designs — soon all three of them were empty, and their intestines were now coating the table and your arms.

"Now's the fun part!" You explained as you grabbed three markers from your pocket. "You can carve any design that you'd like into the front of the pumpkin! Traditionally, you're meant to do a spooky face, but really it can be anything you want."

The Demon Prince paused, tilting his head as he looked at the canvas of his pumpkin. He wanted something suiting for the human "spooky season," but also something sentimental. This was his first jack-o-lantern. He didn't want to mess up something that, based on the purely joyful expression on your face, truly meant a lot to you. He wanted it to be special.

He glanced over at Lucifer, as the demon was delicately peeling layers away from the vegetable, and blushed as an idea rushed to his mind.

He uncapped his marker and got to work.

You had finished your jack-o-lantern first — a slightly crooked rendition ... something. It seems Lucifer was correct on the mutilation part.

Lucifer bit back a laugh as you proudly held your pumpkin out in front of you. "And just what is that meant to be?"

You slumped a little as you pouted. "It's meant to be you and your brothers pact symbols! Can't you tell?"

Dia squinted his eyes and tilted his head a little — it still looked like a bunch of random circles, triangles and squiggly lines — but he gave a fake gasp of realization for your sake. "Oh, I see it now!" He lied, like a liar. "This one must be Beelzebub's! Very well done!"

"That's Lucifer's!" You whined as the said demon snorted beside you.

His snort grew into laughter as you punched his side. "No, no! You misunderstand, MC. I'm not laughing at you. My symbol has never looked so good!"

You huffed and set your pumpkin back down on to the table. "Well let's see what you came up with, Mr. Big Shot!"

A glimmer of pure concentrated pride radiated gorgeously off the demon as he smiled, "With pleasure," he turned the pumpkin around and both your's and Diavolo's jaws dropped.

Delicately carved into the pumpkin's flesh, with varying layers of depth, was an intricate rendition of Cerberus with meat dangling off his fangs.

"Show off," you grumbled as the prince continued to gawk.

Lucifer's chuckled as he ruffled your hair, "I don't know what you mean. I was only following your instructions and having fun with it," you pouted as you smacked his hand away. The demon's head turned to Diavolo, oblivious to how the content glow to his skin made goosebumps rise on the back of the prince's neck. "How did yours turn out?"

Diavolo glanced between his own creation and Lucifers. "I wouldn't say it's quite as masterful as your own work, Lucifer, but I think it's rather nice," he turned the pumpkin around and Lucifer's cheeks flushed while you found yourself gawking once more.

For his very first jack-o-lantern, Diavolo had carved two demons. One with leather-like wings and an impressive set of horns framing his face, and the other with raven's wings sprouting behind him and a diamond on his forehead. The two were leaning close together and smiling.

"DIA!" You screamed leaning close to take it in. "That's so cool! Woah! How did you do that?!"

Lucifer cleared his throat as he glanced up at the prince, "Is that ... us?"

Diavolo proudly nodded. "Of course! I wanted something that meant a lot to me but was also scary. And you, Lucifer, are both my most trusted friend and the most terrifying demon I know. I thought it was only fitting."

If Lucifer hadn't been blushing before, his cheeks were now a beautiful shade of red. Diavolo often wished it wasn't so difficult to make the demon flustered like this — whenever the demon's prideful front was cast aside, he never failed to make the prince fall for him all over again (a poetic irony in its own right).

You eyed the two as their stares remained locked on one another — you felt your own cheeks flush at the mere tension in the room. You quickly grabbed the bowl of pumpkin guts resting on the table and awkwardly stood up. "OH LOOK! We have all kinds of left over pumpkin guts! I'm going to um, roast these with Barbatos for a snack! In the kitchen! Away from here! BYE!"

Before either of them had time to blink you were gone in a blur.

Lucifer fondly shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "Humans. They really are so odd."

Diavolo hummed as he looked back at the monstrosity of a jack-o-lantern that you made. "Endearing though. I quite enjoyed this tradition of theirs."

Silence settled between the two demons as Lucifer carefully picked the remaining pumpkin innards that you had thrown at him off his shirt. "Perhaps," he began without looking at the Prince, "we'll have to do this again next year," Diavolo looked at him, a slow smile began climbing on his face as the demon's warm tone registered within him. "MC clearly needs more practice, and ... I suppose this wasn't so bad," the crimson eyes flickered down to Diavolo's pumpkin once more.

A swarm of butterflies fluttered alongside hope within him — the happiness that was burning within him was one he had seldom experienced before.

A small, stunned laugh bubbled out from within him as he nodded deeply to his closest companion. "As you wish, my dear."

*** Oh it is so nice to have a refreshing break of fluff every now and then 🥰 Thank you all for reading and for the love and support! Please leave a comment, if you can, letting me know what you thought! Your feedback is always appreciated! -B***

TAGLIST:

@thegrimgrinningghost @henry-and-the-seven-lords @satans-beloved-riv @cosmixbun @sufzku @obey-mes-treasure @kissed-by-a-dementor @yukihaie @justtiarra @mammoneybb @poly-bi-mf @burrixino @salvationprodigy @pumpkins-mainside-blog @acousticpen @sucker-for-angst-and-fluff @itskrispy @10paradox10 @vallison-rea @ivoryclive @newfangled-artistry @pumpkinpatchkid @chirikoheina @sailboat21 @theother4 @todoroses @circus-of-freaks @mcx7demonbros @bloopthebat

[moonlitwings1]

Pumpkin Patch

“That one’s too small, Billy,” Max huffs, turning her head back to focus on the pumpkin in front of her. “You can’t carve on that.”

“The fuck you know about pumpkin sizes?”

“Ms. Cris said it has to have a large enough surface so it’ll be easy to carve.”

“Then get that one,” Billy says, pointing to a large yellow pumpkin. He was getting impatient, it’s been ten minutes now, just waiting around for Max to choose a fucking pumpkin. They’ve been looking at row after row of pumpkins. Not to mention that he’s freezing his ass off. He’s wearing a button down with most of the buttons popped open, so that’s not helping his case, but if he’s going to freeze to death, might as well look hot while doing so. 

Max turns to look at the pumpkin he’s pointing at, and sighs like she’s tired of his shit, which pisses him off immediately. If anyone’s tired of anyone’s shit, it’s him. “That’s the ugliest color, Billy.” She’s not wrong. It was an pasty yellow color. 

“Don’t care. You’ve got 10 seconds to chose a pumpkin or we’re leaving without,” he says, already starting to push past her. 

“Wait! How about this one?” she asks, pointing at the one she was just examining. Without hesitation, he grabs the pumpkin and holds it under his arm like a football. 

“Great. Let’s go.” 

After paying for it, he takes Max by the arm and leads her to the car, hitting the gas before she even closes the door completely. 

“You’re going to help me carve it out, right?” 

His head snaps over to her. “What the fuck? No.”

“Mom said-”

“I don’t care what your mom said. I’m telling you no.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees her toss her head up in frustration, banging it against the headrest.

“I’m not allowed to carve it without an adult, Billy!”

“You’re 14. I’m sure you can handle a knife fine.” 

“Tell my mom that!”

He doesn’t bother to reply, choosing to focus on the icy roads ahead of him. Dangerous to speed on, but that’s not going to stop him. He hears her let out a high-pitched noise that sounds awfully like a whine. He can’t help the snort that comes out. This is a dumb thing for her to get frustrated about. 

“Please, Billy. I need it for school tomorrow. I promise it’ll be fun. We can decorate it and stuff. I’ll even give you part of the prize if I win.”

“Prize?”

“Yeah! They give a candy basket each year to the winners. I’ll give you all the chocolates if you help me.” She’s talking faster now that she realizes she’s gotten his attention, only a matter of time before he loses interest. 

“You’ll give me all the chocolates and I don’t have to drive you anywhere for a week if you win.” 

She hesitates at that, mulling it over. “Deal. But you actually have to help me, not just sit there.”

He snorts. “We’ll see.”

-----

They started with gutting the pumpkin first. Billy had pulled a large, white sheet over the table so Susan won’t blow a gasket when they inevitably spill pumpkin guts all over it. 

"Go grab a knife, Max,” he says, watching as she rushes to do what she’s told. It’s amusing watching her scramble for it. He’s pretty sure she’s scared that one wrong move will get him to ditch the project. She’s not wrong. 

He grabs the knife from her and starts carving out the top. Max stands there silently while watching, ready to do anything he says. His little apprentice. Ironic since this is supposed to her project. 

“You know what you’re going to carve this into?” 

Max shuffles her feet. “Um, I have a skull stencil we can use. I wanted to make one that looks like your tattoo.”

He grunts at that, too focused on cutting the top open.

“It doesn’t have a cigarette tho,” she presses on. “I was thinking we could stick one of yours in the middle of it.”

“So you want me to help you with this dumb shit and give you one my cigarettes that I paid for with my own goddamn money?” 

“...Yes?” 

“Not a chance in hell,” he smirks, pulling at the stem. 

“But-”

“Got it open,” he says triumphantly, holding the stem out in front of her. “Go get some ice scream scoops.”

She clambers away and comes back with two in hand along with a bowl. He takes the bowl from her and gets to work, nudging her to do the same. In 10 minutes, they’ve gotten the pumpkin pretty scraped down. 

“Ew. Look at all the guts,” she says, poking at the bowl. 

“Save them. Maybe Susan’ll want to make use of it.”

Max nods. “I’ll get the stencils.”

He’ll let Max do the tracing herself. If he’s being honest, his arm hurts from all that scooping. Getting the top off the pumpkin put strain on his arm. It's harder than it looks, ok? 

He hoists himself up from the rickety chair under him and pulls out a cigarette and his lighter. “I’m going out to smoke,” he mumbles as he passes Max in hallway. He doesn’t wait for her reply before pushing the door open and slipping outside. 

---

“Billy!” he hears Max shout from the inside. “I’m finished!”

Ten minutes pass too fast, he thinks. Sighing, he flicks the cigarette butt onto the driveway below him. He’ll probably get shit for that later. He walks back in to see Max focusing with her tongue sticking out from between her teeth, fixing the messy edges with a marker. He reaches out to ruffle her hair, chuckling when she tries to shove his hand off of her. 

“What’s next, shitbird?” 

“We have to carve it now, dumbass. What do you think?” 

He scowls at her for a long moment before flicking her nose. “Lose the attitude.”

“Ow, Billy!” she whines, rubbing her nose with one hand and pushing him with the other. “That hurt.” Whiney bitch. He didn’t even do it that hard. 

“Hand me the knife.” She gives him a glare before shoving the knife into his hand. He has zero experience in pumpkin carving so this won’t turn out well. Especially since Max didn’t want to help him by choosing an easy design. The skull she had drawn on seems simple enough, but it has way too many teeth to carve individually. He’s not too worried about it though; he’ll just make some adjustments. 

Max sits beside him and watches him, her chin resting on the table. "Do we have candles?” 

“Probably. Why? You can’t bring them to school unless you want to start a fire.”

“I know, but I want to put one inside the pumpkin when halloween actually comes,” she says. “It’ll look spooky to trick or treaters.”

Billy looks up at her. “You’re still allowed to go trick or treating?” Max got grounded a couple days ago for sneaking out when Neil was home. For all his talk about respect and responsibility, he can’t even watch his own step-daughter. 

“No,” she sighs. “I wish. That’s why I wanna win this. So I can still have more candy than all my friends without even going trick-or-treating.”

He stares at her for a moment. There’s no way she’s serious. When she just glares at him harder, eyes squinted, he laughs. “That’s why you want to win? So you can have more candy than all your little friends? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard today.” Sometimes he forgets that Max is just a kid that stresses about dumb kid stuff. 

“’s not stupid,” she mumbles, but it sounds weak. “I just want candy.”

“Couldn’t tell,” he chuckles, bringing his focus back to the task at hand. One wrong move, and it’ll turn into shit. 

----

...many wrong moves later...

“Maybe we could put a hat on to cover it up?”

The pumpkin looked horrifying and not in the intended way. The eyes and nose were ok, a little too boxy, but they weren’t terrible. But the teeth. Oh, the teeth. He could say it was  an artistic choice but even that wouldn’t be able to excuse it. 

“Hat’s not going to do shit to cover up the front, dumbass.”

“Well it’ll distract from...all that,” she says, hands motioning towards the pumpkin. 

“You know, this is your fault for making the stencil so detailed.”

She turns to look at him, mouth agape, indignant. He wishes he could take a picture of that face and frame it. “Wha--my fault?! It’s your fault for not being able to follow the stupid stencil!” 

“Who puts teeth on a jack o'lantern, Max? Jack o'lanterns don’t have teeth. They have fucking gaps in their mouth.” 

“Well, it wasn’t supposed to look like a jack o'lantern. It was supposed to be a skull but you botched it,” she huffs, crossing her arms across her body. “Now it looks like a skull that needs braces...or dentures. You made a grandma skull.”

Normally, he’d see red with an ungrateful, bratty attitude like that, but even he has to agree with her. Laughing, he replies, “True. Ya got me there, but why the fuck did you think I’d be able to carve tiny fucking teeth?”

“I don’t know,” she sighs, dropping her arms. “I guess I thought you had potential or whatever.”

“Now why the fuck would you think that?”

She laughs. A genuine one too, and try as he might, he can’t push aside the pride that fills his chest from making her laugh.

She shrugs, “Good question.” 

They sit there in silence for a minute, admiring their monstrosity. Billy reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. 

“Go get a piece of tape. If we’re going to have a grandma skull, might as well make it a badass one.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to give me a cigarette that you paid for with your own ‘goddamn money,’” she snarks, putting words into air quotes. 

He scowls at her. “You better get that tape quickly before I change my mind.”

She rolls her eyes before leaving in search of tape. Ungrateful brat. She comes rushing back with a piece of tape on her finger that he snatches up. He sticks the cigarette on the lower part of the mouth and tapes it down. Still looks shitty. 

“Wait!” Max says, looking like she just had a lightbulb moment. “I could say this is what happens when you smoke.” 

“Maxine, what the fuck.”

“What? It’ll be a lesson to all the students, and my teachers’ll will be impressed. Isn’t teeth rotting a side affect of smoking? That would work for this. Also, just so you know, rotting teeth isn’t the only side affect. There’s also the risk of bad breath, lung damage, yellowing eyes...” she goes on, counting on her fucking fingers for God’s sake. 

“You’re a little shit, you know that?” 

She grins at it him. “What? I’m just saying how it is. You should quit. Maybe that’ll help your bad breath.” 

Billy scoffs. He does not have bad breath. That little bitch is making shit up, and she didn’t look a bit remorseful. That’ll change soon enough. “You gonna apologize for that?” 

She snorts, “No.”

Ok then. “You better start running, Max.”

“What?”

“Five, four...” Max looks at him in horror, eyes wide. 

“Billy, it was just a joke.”

“Three...”

“I’m sorry?” Well, too late for her apology now. 

He stands up, looking down at his watch for dramatic purposes. “Two...” The count down seems to be working because right as he was about to say one, she sprints off towards the direction of her room. He cackles before chasing after her, but it’s just for show. Her reaction made it worth it. Max is squealing like a little kid, reaching for her door and closing it right before letting out a final high-pitched scream. 

“ASSHOLE,” she yells. 

“SHITBIRD,” he yells back, holding back laughter.

---

The next day, he drives Max to school with the pumpkin held securely in her lap. 

“You think you’re gonna win?”

“No,” she laughs. “Have you seen it? It’s too ugly to win.”

“No candy for you then, huh?” 

He sees her shrug from the corner of his eye. “Probably not. But I don’t really care anymore. My friends’ll give me their shitty leftovers.”

“You’re still sharing with me, though. And I don’t have to drive you anywhere today.”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember.”

----

High school ends 30 minutes before the middle school so that leaves Billy sitting in the car, waiting for Max. He looks at his watch. If he leaves now, he’ll be able to make it to the convenience store and back in about 20 minutes. He wants to pick up some candy. Not for Max. No. Halloween’s tonight. It’s best to be prepared. Neil was probably going to go tell him to pick some up anyways. 

Mind set, he starts up the car and heads off to Melvald’s, grabbing two large packs of candy. The labels listed different types of chocolate. He thinks about Max always begging him to pick up a chocolate bar for her when he goes to get gas. Max likes chocolate...but he’s getting chocolate because it’s popular, not because of her. Everyone likes chocolate, right? He’s sure the trick-or-treaters will be incredibly delighted.  

He tosses the two bags of candy into the backseat before heading off to pick up Max. 

---

“Any luck?” he asks, pushing the passenger side door open from where he’s sitting since Max’s hands are full, holding the pumpkin in one hand and her skateboard in the other. 

“No,” she grumbles, getting into the car, and shutting the door. “Some prissy girl won first place for her stupid princess pumpkin.”

“Sounds lame.” He didn’t expect her to win. That grandma pumpkin was mediocre at best. 

“It was.” She lets out a sigh and tosses her skateboard in the back without looking, pausing when she hears the loud crinkle of plastic. Shit. 

“Is that for me?” she gasps, already turning her body around completely, reaching into the backseat. She’s kneeling on the seat, hunching over the shoulder of it.

Billy swipes at her hands and pushes her back into the seat before she can get her dirty hands on the bags. 

“No,” he says, starting up the car, and pulling away. “They’re for the trick or treaters tonight.”

There definitely weren’t going to be enough trick or treaters to actually take all two giant bags of candy. They don’t live in a very popular neighborhood. 

“Oh, but there’re two bags of candy,” she pouts. 

“So? Dad told me to get two.” Lies. 

“How come we didn’t give out candy last year? I thought Neil said it was the devil’s holiday.” 

Billy snorts. He forgot about that. “How the fuck am I supposed to know? Go ask him.” He prays to whatever God out there that she doesn’t actually go and bug Neil about it. That won’t end well. 

“There’s gonna be leftovers,” she muses. He can feel her staring at him with wide eyes. It’s making him uncomfortable, and he squirms in his seat a little before turning to glare at her.

“And? 

She’s pouting obnoxiously now, giving him a puppy dog look. That shit won’t work on him. “Can I have the leftovers? Please?”

“You still owe me candy,” he says. “I should be the one eating them.” 

“We can split it! 

He pretends to mull it over. “Fine.”

“Yes!” she squeals, triumphant, pumping her fist up in the air, but it hits the car ceiling.

“Watch it, you bitch,” he snaps, but he’s not really mad. He’s just trying to cover up the smile that’s tugging at his lips. This is stupid. He can’t believe he’s smiling over this shit. 

“Ooo, can we get dressed up?”

“Hell fucking no, Maxine. Don’t push it.” 

“But it’s Friday! Neil and Mom will be out on dinner and I have an extra eye-patch. We could be pirates!” 

Ok, being a pirate didn’t sound like the worst idea. It could give him an excuse to walk around shirtless. Plus, he could show off to all the mom’s taking their children trick-or-treating. Maybe Steve’ll come with his gaggle of kids...

“Fine, but I’m not driving you for two weeks now.” 

He laughs when Max lets out a dramatic sigh. Tonight’ll be fun. He expects stomach aches and candy wrappers everywhere. Maybe even smashed pumpkin bits, if she’ll let him. They have an axe in the shed. He could put on a horror show for her. The victim? A grandma pumpkin. 

[lynnearlington]

ooooh fall!! prompts!! okay okay kara/lena and pumpkins

The first year, they’re just friends and only just close enough that Kara extends an invitation to the annual pumpkin carving contest.

Lena takes a little convincing but eventually agrees and joins the group at the pumpkin patch dressed in a casual pair of pants and a warm oversized sweater.

They pick out pumpkins and buy apple cider and Kara takes the time to explain strategy and gives her a laundry list of first timer tips as she refers to it. It’s a tad overwhelming at first, but Lena handles it as best she can, smiling and nodding at Kara as they walk through the lines of pumpkins.

“You guys take this pretty seriously,” Lena observes after Kara tells her about an ongoing friend-circle debate on the virtue of using stencils.

Kara’s face affects an expression that clearly conveys duh before she says, “Totally seriously.”

It takes a bit of effort to swallow the laugh that wants to come out so she just hides her smile behind her cup of cider and is grateful when Winn interrupts them with, “Kara, can you help me carry this to the cart?”

–

Lena sticks with a traditional design of a jack o’lantern. It’s the first time in her life she’s ever carved a pumpkin for Halloween and it’s the easiest design she can think to do.

Kara’s comment is a friendly, “Classic is always a good route to go.” But Lena catches sight of the intricate tree like drawing Kara’s working on for her own pumpkin and sighs.

–

Winn ends up winning the competition that year with his Jack Skellington design and he has to hold the pumpkin above his head when Alex threatens to smash it in indignation.

His eyes go wide like the threat is something real and Lena wants to laugh when Alex instructs her sister to, “Hold him down.”

The second year is the year Lena finds out Kara Danvers and Supergirl are the same person.

It’s a shock, but as Lena thinks over it, it really shouldn’t have been. Their friendship hits a bit of a pothole, but they recover.

Kara is persistent in her apologies and Lena can’t fathom losing her friendship. They work through it and Lena tries to swallow the heavy pill that is her closest friend having lied to her for the past year.

The annual pumpkin carving contest is the first social activity they do together that doesn’t involve tears or arguing or profuse apology.

“You’re still my friend and you’ll always be invited,” Kara says as a way of pleading with her to come. “I know things have been weird between us, but I want you to come. If you want to.”

Lena lets the tension sag out of her shoulders and decides to stop fighting that urge deep inside her to just forgive Kara and move on.

“I want to,” she says and the smile that spreads over Kara’s features blooms warmth over Lena’s chest.

–

The night goes the same as the previous year and Lena takes comfort in the routine of it. They head out to the pumpkin patch, buy a round of hot apple ciders and stroll through the rows deciding on which pumpkin to pick out.

Lucy comes over to their cart holding a massive pumpkin and four smaller ones balanced on top of it and at Lena’s wide-eyed questioning look she just mutters, “Don’t worry about it.”

It makes Kara laugh before she pulls Lena down the rows with a casual easy touch Lena didn’t think they’d ever get back to.

“Any idea what you’re going to carve this year?” Kara asks absently as she inspects a pumpkin half covered in warts.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” is all Lena answers mostly because she hasn’t thought of it at all.

“Mysterious,” Kara teases with a wiggle of her eyebrows that makes Lena smile.  

–

In the end, she carves the Supergirl crest into her pumpkin and when she reveals it to Kara her friend’s eyes go a little round in surprise.

“You did a good job,” Kara says quietly as her eyes roam the pumpkin.

Lena locks eyes with her. “It’s my best friend’s family crest,” she says and before she can say more Kara surges forward and locks her in a strong hug.

“I love you,” Kara murmurs into Lena’s shoulder and they’ve said it before, casually and seriously and every which way, but it’s significant then. It feels like resolution they couldn’t find before.

“I love you too,” Lena replies and she wraps her arms over Kara’s shoulders.

–

Lucy wins that year after somehow constructing a monster like creation out of multiple pumpkins attached to each other. Just like every year, Alex vehemently disagrees with the result and accuses everyone of cheating somehow like she wasn’t the person who took and tallied the votes.

“Let’s take it to the public,” Maggie suggests with a shrug and both Alex and Lucy seem to agree.

They take both pumpkins out to the doorstep of Alex’s building and set them there. James brings out a thermos of spiked apple cider and they pass it around. Alex and Lucy spend their time badgering anyone who walks down the sidewalk to take a vote on which pumpkin is better and Lena just presses in close to the warmth of Kara’s body against the fall chill air and smiles.

The third year Kara kisses Lena.

That’s the one thing she’ll remember with clarity about that year.

It’s midway down the fourth row of pumpkins, somewhere near the big round haystack with a painted black cat and right after Lena laughed at some dumb joke Kara was making.

Kara’s lips taste like the apple cider they’d just finished and her cheeks are chill from the air and when she presses forward, Lena’s back hits the haystack behind her.

It feels like a long time coming if Lena’s honest and so she doesn’t hesitate in kissing Kara back.

It isn’t until Winn interrupts them with a loud exclaimed, “Whoa!” that they break apart and even then they stay hovered in each other’s airspace for long moments.

“I’ll see you guys at the car,” is all Winn adds before leaving them alone.

Lena pushes forward and kisses Kara again.

–

It takes considerably longer for Lena to decide what to carve that year and she blames that entirely on the way Kara keeps smiling shyly at her whenever their hands brush reaching for a tool.

The result is that she just copies Kara. They both end up with a variation on the classic jack o’lantern look, but with more expression and detail.

Lena wins.

Much to Kara’s sputtering incredulity.

“But we have the exact same pumpkin!”

“It’s not exactly the same,” Alex points out and she gestures to the mouth - Kara’s having one tooth and Lena’s having many. There’s a bemused teasing smile on Alex’s face that she can’t quite read, but clearly the elder Danvers sister is enjoying the moment immensely.

Lena tunes the argument out, doesn’t even care that much that she won. All she can think to care about is the way Kara’s cheeks look all flushed with indignation. It still feels like she can taste their kiss from earlier on her lips and she’s desperate to get Kara alone and talk about what it all means.

By the fourth year they’ve been officially together for ten months and they arrive to the pumpkin patch thirty minutes late but together and with apology pumpkin spice lattes for everyone.

“Don’t think this delicious drink will distract me from your lateness,” Alex says to them with narrowed suspicious eyes and Lena laughs.

Kara shrugs and wraps an arm around Lena’s waist.

–

They decide to do a pumpkin together which Alex absolutely balks at though Lena thinks that has more to do with Maggie’s noticeable absence than anything else.

Alex is about halfway through the boozy punch that Lucy brought and she’s taken to just stabbing her pumpkin with a knife over and over again. Kara scoots their pumpkin down the counter away from Alex with a wary expression.

“Jeez, Alex, don’t take it out on the pumpkin,” Winn jokes, but the sound cuts off into a cough when Alex throws a glare his way, knife raised in her hand.

He backs away slowly while James laughs.

–

Winn makes a robot pumpkin.

The minute Kara notices that he’s added robotic parts to his pumpkin she turns accusatory eyes towards Lena. “You helped him,” she says suspiciously and Lena just puts her hands up in a defensive gesture though she thinks the smile she’s unable to stop gives her away.

“No way, that’s cheating,” Lucy complains from her perch on one of the kitchen bar stools. Her legs are crossed at the ankle and propped up on James’s pumpkin where it sits on the counter.

“It’s not cheating just because you guys didn’t think of it,” Winn argues with a grumble.

Kara reaches out curiously to tug on one of the robot arms and it snaps immediately in her grip, all the metallic pieces crashing into the pumpkin and destroying half of it. When she looks back up it’s with a chagrined look on her face and an oops on her lips.

They call the contest a draw when Winn retaliates by pushing Kara and Lena’s pumpkin onto the ground.

The fifth year they’re fighting.

Lena doesn’t attend the annual pumpkin carving party and she finds she misses it desperately.

Alex spends the night texting her pictures from it - mostly of Kara’s grumpy face throughout the evening and then a particularly hilarious one of her throwing a handful of pumpkin guts at James.

It pangs at her heart enough that she calls Kara later than night.

“I hate fighting,” Kara says and Lena sighs. They’re not even fighting over something consequential. It was just a series of little squabbles coupled with busy work schedules and not enough free time and it all came to a head.

“I don’t enjoy it either,” Lena admits.

“Can I come over?” Kara asks quietly and Lena laughs.

“That depends. Did you win the contest?”

Kara makes an affronted sound and Lena can imagine that little disgruntled crinkle she always gets between her brows. “Lucy won and she will not shut up about it.”

“Sounds like her,” Lena says and her chest feels a little tight just imagining the familiar scene of all their friends arguing over who deserves to win. “I missed you guys.”

“We missed you too,” Kara replies and warm silence stretches over the phone for a bit. “I’m sorry.”

Lena takes a deep breath. “Me too.”

–

Kara comes over with her carved pumpkin as well as an uncarved one that she hands to Lena with a bright smile. “I still got you a pumpkin. Didn’t feel right not doing it.”

Lena takes it from her hands with a laugh and trades her for a quick kiss. “Help me carve it?”

“Of course.”

The sixth year, Lena plans her pumpkin eight months in advance and enlists some help from their friends.

It takes her extra long to pick out the perfect pumpkin and Kara looks at her with a curious expression. “Taking it extra serious this year?” She asks, her fingers tangling with Lena’s as they stroll through the rolls.

Lena scoffs. “I always take it seriously,” she says before taking a warm sip of her cider.

Kara laughs, but gets distracted by a particularly warped pumpkin to their right and disentangles from Lena to inspect it.

Alex comes up next to her while Kara’s occupied and leans in close, hand around Lena’s shoulder. “Just pick one. It’s not going to matter.”

A faint blush starts to creep up Lena’s cheeks, but she clears her throat and straightens. “I know what I’m doing,” she tells Alex though she’s slightly grateful for the strong hold Alex has on her shoulders. It’s settling some of the nerves she can feel building in her stomach.

“I’m sure you do,” Alex replies with a little smirk as she pulls away and walks towards her sister.

–

The hard part is carving the pumpkin in a way that Kara can’t see it before it’s finished.

James helps a bit by standing to Lena’s right in between the couple and Lucy does her part in talking to Kara as a diversion tactic.

Lena feels like her hands are shaking and this might not be the best time to handle sharp knives, but Alex pins her with a look that practically orders get a hold of yourself.

It’s a quick carving job after that, just a sequence of letters.

By the time she’s done it’s just a matter of showing Kara. The small black box in the pocket of cardigan starts to feel extra heavy as she realizes the next step.

Everyone else is in on it and they don’t make her feel any less nervous with the way they’re eying her with excitement. Winn in particular looks like he’s going to spoil the surprise at any moment so Lena knows she doesn’t have much time.

Kara’s still busy carving what looks like a witch silhouette into her pumpkin and Lena makes a small sound to get her attention just as James moves away with feigned intent to grab another beer.

Turning with a questioning smile, Kara looks over at her. “Hey, you finished already?”

Her fingers play with the box in her pocket. “Yeah, you want to see it?”

Kara’s brows pull down slightly, but her smile doesn’t fade. “Sure, definitely.”

Her throat feels thick and her hand unsteady and it’s all ridiculous because she knows Kara loves her, knows she’s going to say yes and she’s faced so many more nerve wracking situations than this. With a final deep breath she turns the pumpkin so Kara can see it and waits for the realization to spread on her girlfriend’s face.

It takes a second, but suddenly Kara’s eyes go comically wide and she takes in a sharp breath as her gaze scans over the simple carving MARRY ME

Knowing that’s probably her cue, Lena pulls the box out of her pocket and opens it in Kara’s line of sight.

Kara’s eyes dart between the ring and the pumpkin, back and forth, back and forth. “What’s happening right now?”

She hears Alex laugh from somewhere else in the kitchen and wonders why she thought this would be a good idea to do in front of people, but soldiers on with a quirk of her lips. “I think we should get married.”

“You do?”

Lena nods. “Yeah. Thoughts?”

A second more of just blank, confused staring, before a wide unstoppable smile spreads over Kara’s lips and Lena feels her own face mirroring the expression.

“Yes,” Kara says definitively, dropping the utensils in her hand and striding forward to scoop Lena up into a tight hug. The embrace lifts her up off the ground and she nearly drops the ring in her hand, but she laughs as Kara starts to press kisses to her face.

“Yes?” Lena asks just to be sure though judging from the infectious way Kara is smiling the answer is fairly obvious.

“Yes,” Kara repeats before pushing their lips together for long enough that Lucy has to throw the top of a pumpkin at Kara’s head just to get them to stop.

–

When Alex wins the contest that year instead of Lena, Kara takes personal exception to it and throws her sister’s pumpkin out the window.

Feel free to check out my Ko-Fi page if you’re feeling nasty. 

[d-s-winchester]

Pumpkins & Promises

(gif credit to the creator) Pairing: Misha x Reader Word Count: 1,681 Warnings: Fluff. SO MUCH FLUFF. A/N: I haven’t written an oneshot in who knows how long but I finally feel like I have my mojo back! This is my entry for my own Fall in Love With Fall Challenge. The picture I chose (it isn’t on the list) is in the fic below the cut. If you want to join the challenge click the link above, there’s still 20 spots left. Hope you guys like it! Anyway, feedback for this is awesome! :)

On the rare occasion that Misha was able to take a break from filming, you wanted him all to yourself -- especially when the cast and crew were only a couple months into filming a new season. Your schedule wasn't much less chaotic than Misha’s, which meant you weren't exactly flying up to Vancouver every other weekend.

 Though you and Misha had planned a nice weekend at home for just the two of you during this rare time together -- in a house you had bought together during hiatus, then had been so busy, neither of you had been able to really enjoy the new home -- your sister’s babysitter fell through, leaving you to watch your six-year-old niece, Kayleigh, while your sister and her husband attended an out of town wedding.

 Walking up the front steps, with Kayleigh right behind you, you pulled out your keys to unlock the front door. No sooner than you pushed the door open did Sadie, your big, black Newfoundland, come rushing to the door.

 “Looks like Sadie missed you too,” you laughed as Kayleigh pushed past you to pet the dog, dropping her small suitcase in the process.

 You reached behind you to grab the suitcase before ushering both Sadie and Kayleigh into the house.

 Once everyone was inside Kayleigh started running from room to room, clearly looking for something.

 “Where’s uncle Misha? You said he was gonna be here too!”

 You smiled at her. Despite not being married, or even engaged for that matter, Kayleigh still insisted on referring to Misha as her uncle.

 “Well, we have to go pick him up at the airport in a few hours. But first, we’re gonna put your stuff in your room and have some lunch. Sound good?”

 Kayleigh nodded in agreement and took her suitcase from you before taking off in the direction of the guest room she always stayed in when you watched her. Once you both finished eating lunch and took Sadie for a walk you got Kayleigh into her booster seat in the back seat of your car and headed for the airport.

 Kayleigh was bouncing up and down with anticipation while you waited for Misha. You hadn’t been waiting there for long before you saw him come into view. Kayleigh let go of your hand and took off running toward Misha. As she got closer to him, Misha knelt down with his arms out. Kayleigh ran right into his outstretched arms and he stood up as he hugged her tightly before spinning her around and setting her back down on the floor.

 “Welcome home,” you smiled, leaning in to kiss him, once you reached them.

 Both you and Misha laughed at the disgusted look on Kayleigh’s face from your show of affection. Misha grabbed his suitcase and you all made your way out to the car. The entire drive from the airport to your house was filled with Kayleigh grilling Misha with questions about work, mostly asking about Jensen seeing as she had quite the crush on him.

 When you finally got back to the house you got dinner ready while Misha unpacked and sat in the living room coloring with Kayleigh. After dinner was done and you gave Kayleigh her bath she insisted on watching a movie. You put on her favorite Disney movie and she settled herself on the couch between you and Misha. Halfway through the movie she was fast asleep and Misha carried her to bed while you washed and put away the dishes from dinner.

 Saturday mornings you usually tried to sleep in, but knowing that Kayleigh would be getting up early you forced yourself out of bed at the same time you’d normally get up for work. After showering and getting dressed you made your way to the kitchen to get started on breakfast. The smell of pumpkin spice waffles and coffee wafted through the house and within minutes Misha was carrying Kayleigh in a piggyback ride into the kitchen.

 “What are we doing today?” Kayleigh asked as Misha set her down on the barstool at the island in the kitchen.

 “Well,” you said putting some waffles on the plates in front of you, “Misha and I were thinking about taking you to the autumn festival.”

 “What’s that?” Kayleigh asked, digging into her waffles.

 “Well, it’s like a carnival,” Misha explained, “there’s rides and games and food. We think it will be fun. How does that sound to you?”

 Kayleigh seemed to think it over for a second before responding.

 “Will you go on the rides with me uncle Misha?”

 “Of course I will!”

 “Then that sounds fun to me!”

 Once breakfast was finished you cleaned up and got Kayleigh ready for the day while Misha took a shower and got dressed. After taking Sadie for a short walk everyone piled into the car and headed over to the festival. Just as Misha promised he rode all the rides with Kayleigh while you played the games with her. After a few hours you grabbed some food and walked through the shops selling some odds and ends. As dinner time approached you could tell Kayleigh was getting tired and you stopped for some funnel cake as you slowly made your way back to the car.

As you walked the streets Kayleigh noticed two large boxes in front of a store advertising carving pumpkins.

 “Can we get some aunt Y/N?”

 “Absolutely.”

 She grinned at you before running toward the boxes determined to pick out the best pumpkins. You and Misha walked toward the boxes as she ran back toward you carrying a pumpkin that was much too heavy for her. Once she reached you she dropped the pumpkin. As it hit the ground it exploded at your feet, effectively covering Misha’s pants with pumpkin guts.

 Kayleigh looked like she was about to cry. “I’m sorry, uncle Misha. I didn’t mean to.”

 “Hey, it’s ok, KayKay,” Misha said picking her up, “why don’t we pick out a couple together? Sound good?”

 She nodded and Misha carried her on his hip over to the box of pumpkins. After picking out three pumpkins, one for each of you, Misha paid for them and you walked back to the car. Back at the house everyone changed into their pajamas and you got everything ready for pumpkin carving. While Misha cut open the pumpkins and gutted them you helped Kayleigh pick out which design she wanted to carve.

 Misha worked on separating the pumpkin seeds from the innards of the pumpkin while you worked on getting all the stencils ready. Once everything was in place, and Misha had the seeds roasting in the oven, you got to carving. Halfway through, Misha pulled the seeds out of the oven and salted them before putting them in a bowl on the table.

 “What are these?” Kayleigh asked, stopping her carving long enough to inspect the seeds.

 “It’s the seeds from the pumpkin,” Misha said grabbing a few and tossing them into his mouth, “try it. You’ll like them, I promise.”

 Taking his word for it, like she always did, Kayleigh grabbed a few seeds and ate them -- smiling at Misha while she did.

 Another hour went by before the pumpkins were all carved and even though Kayleigh was obviously exhausted she insisted on seeing them lit before she went to bed. The three of you carried the pumpkins outside, placing them on either side of the front door, and you dropped a tealight candle in each before lighting them.

 “I love them!” Kayleigh grinned.

 “Me too,” you smiled, pulling her close to you before placing a kiss on her temple, “but now it’s time for bed. Your mom and dad are gonna be here early tomorrow to pick you up.”

 Kayleigh nodded and motioned for Misha to pick her up. He carried her into the house and once you were both finished tucking her in you got settled on the couch. Misha told you to pick a movie while he went to the bathroom and once he was back he seated himself next to you, pulling you close. You pressed play on one of your favorite Halloween movies, Hocus Pocus, and leaned against him.

 “I love having Kayleigh here,” Misha said as you watched the movie.

 “Me too.”

 “Makes me think about how amazing it’s going to be when we can do that one day.”

 “I know what you mean.”

 “Y/N/N?” he asked, and you felt him tense up next to you.

 “Yeah?”

 He cleared his throat and you turned to face him.

 “This was something I planned on doing this weekend anyway, and I had a whole thing planned, but this just seems so much better,” he said standing up.

 “Mish…”

 He stood in front of you and reached into the pocket of his flannel pajama pants, pulling out a black velvet box. Your hands flew up to your face, covering your mouth, as he got down on one knee.

 “Y/N Y/L/N, I have loved you from the moment I met you. And in that moment I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, but this weekend with Kayleigh, it really solidified that for me. I want to marry you, have a family with you, grow old with you. I want to go through all of life’s ups and downs with you. Will you marry me?”

 “Yes!” you said, tears streaming down your face, “Of course! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

 Misha chuckled at your enthusiasm as he slid the diamond ring onto your finger before leaning forward to place a kiss on your lips. He’d said he had something different planned for the proposal but you wouldn’t have had it any other way. You couldn’t have imagined a more perfect moment. Misha settled himself back on the couch next to you, pulling you close to him to continue watching the movie. As much as you didn’t want Kayleigh to leave you were looking forward to your sister arriving in the morning so you could share the good news.

[blackpjensen]

25 Simple Halloween Decoration Ideas For Your Landscape

Ghosts, witches and skeletons… oh my! Get your yard ready for the spookiest night of the year with these fun outdoor ideas.

In The Garden

Don’t have a garden? It’s not as hard as you think. Get yourself some dirt and mulch to get you started. For optimal results, we recommend the Garden Mix. If you need to fight some weeds while gardening, pick up some landscaping fabric. 

Pumpkin Patch

How To Do It: Place pumpkins in your garden to make it look like you have your own patch. Doing it this way avoids you actually having to plant and nurture your own pumpkins. You can get pumpkins from any local grocery store during the Halloween season. Check your local apple orchard as they often grow pumpkins as well.

  Ghoulish Graveyard

How To Do It: Add gravestones, cobwebs, and skeletons to your garden to spook trick-or-treaters and house guests. 

  Glowing Pavers

Paint stepping stones with glow-in-the-dark paint for an eerie curb appeal. If you want to take a more long-lasting approach, you can make your own stepping stones with glow-in-the-dark powder. The phosphorescent chemical recharges in the sunlight and can glow for anywhere from 30 minutes to 10 hours. 

What You Need:

Concrete mix

Stone mold

Glow-in-the-dark powder (with Earth Iluminate)

How To Do It: Add glow-in-the-dark powder to the concrete mix and make your stepping stones as normal. The recommended amount to use is about 15 percent powder to the concrete. 

  Zombie Hands Coming From The Earth

How To Do It: Place plastic hands and other body parts in pots of dirt to make it look like they are growing. Standard black pulverized dirt will provide the most visually appealing yet affordable dirt for those zombie’s hands. 

A fun branch off of this idea is to serve cupcakes with the same theme. 

  On The Porch

Painted Pumpkins

How To Do It: If you’re short on time and don’t want to deal with the mess of carving a pumpkin, paint one instead. If you plan on handing out non-food items to trick-or-treaters, you can paint a pumpkin teal and place it on your step to signify to kids with food allergies or other conditions that they can come to your door.

  Pumpkin Display  

What You Need:

Hay Bales

Wooden Crates

Pumpkins

How To Do It: Stack hay bales and crates to create a display for your porch or along the outside of your house. Fill your creation with pumpkins, plants and any other decor you can find. Feeling extra spooky? Add some lights or lanterns to the mix for when it gets dark. When it’s time to retire the decor, use the hay as makeshift mulch until spring rolls around.

  Bloody Footprints

How To Do It: Step into washable red paint and walk up to your front door. For a greater effect, add some pretend bloody limbs by your walkway. Red lights and blacklights would be the icing on the cake for this gloomy walkway.

  Bubbling Witches Cauldron

What You Need: 

Cauldron

Hot Water

Dry Ice

Gloves / Tongs

How To Do It: 

Fill the cauldron halfway with hot water. 

To make bubbles, add some dishwashing soap. 

To give your “witches brew” a scent, add spices to the mixture. 

Add a few pieces of dry ice to create the smoking effect. You’ll want 10-15 pounds of dry ice total to keep your cauldron going all night long. You cannot touch dry ice with your bare hands, so make sure you handle it safely with gloves or tongs.

  Mummy Door

What You Need:

White Crepe Streamers

Black Construction Paper (1 sheet)

White Construction Paper (1 sheet)

Tape

Scissors

How To Do It: Start by wrapping the streamers around your door. When you’ve achieved the look you want, cut out two eyes from the construction paper and tape them to the door. 

  Poison Apples

How To Do It: Place a basket of “poison” apples next to your front door as an offering. This can be as easy as setting a basket of apples and a fake bottle of poison next to it. 

  Welcome (Or Not) Mat

What You Need:

Old doormat or carpeting square

Paint

How To Do It: Paint a message on the doormat to dare visitors to enter. Use this along with other fun ideas on this blog post, such as the bloody walkway. If you prefer functionality and less work, a higher-end Halloween entry mat may be just what the doctor ordered.

  Boarded Up Windows

How To Do It: Attach real or fake boards to your windows to make it look like your house has been abandoned. Or go the easy route and pick some premade ones up at Walmart for under $20.

  Potions

How To Do It: Decorate old jars and containers to look like potion bottles. 

  Scarecrow

What You Need:

Wood Planks (2)

Hammer & Nails

Small Bucket

Newspaper

Burlap

Twine

Clothing (we suggest an old flannel, overalls and a hat)

Straw (1 bale)

Black Sharpie Marker

Glue

How To Do It: 

Nail the wood planks together in a cross-shape.

Line the bucket with burlap and begin to fill it with wads of newspaper. Continue to do so until the bucket is packed tight with newspaper.

Place the end of the plank where your scarecrow’s head will be into the bucket of the newspaper.

Use twine to tie the burlap around the newspaper and top of the plank. This will be the scarecrow’s head.

Remove the bucket and turn your scarecrow upright.

Put the flannel on the scarecrow. Tie the ends of the sleeves and the bottom of the shirt with twine and fill it with straw.

Place the overalls on the form. Tie the ends of each leg with twine and fill them with straw.

Use the Sharpie to draw a face on the scarecrow’s head.

Glue the hat on top of your scarecrow.

  Spider Webs

What You Need:

Clothesline (100 feet)

Ceiling Hooks (3)

How To Do It:

Attach the ceiling hooks to the top of your porch, about 1’ from each other.

String one length of clothesline from the middle ceiling hook and tie it to a porch railing.

String another length of clothesline horizontally across the first string, so they make a cross-shape. Tie a knot at the center point.

String two more lengths of clothesline from the remaining ceiling hooks and tie them to the railing diagonally, so they form an “X”.

Take the rest of the clothesline and tie one end to the center knot, then begin to tie knots as you circle around the center. Your web will begin to form.

Add a spider to your web if you would like.

  Window Silhouettes

How To Do It: Use a stencil to trace silhouettes onto black construction paper. Cut them out and place them in your windows. 

  Yard Decor

Pumpkin Planters

What You Need:

Pumpkin Treat Buckets

Dirt

How To Do It: Fill pumpkins with Garden Mix Dirt and whatever plants you want. While Target sells the weatherproof pumpkin planters, you can make a fun project out of it by carving out a pumpkin and doing it organically.

  Lit Pathway

How To Do It: Line your walkway with small candles or lights (to stay on the safe side).

  Mason Jar Luminaries

What You Need:

Mason Jars

Paint

Tea Candles (1 for each mason jar) or string lights

How To Do It: Paint your mason jars however you would like and place a tea candle or string lights in each. It’s dead simple. If you want inspiration, or just would prefer to buy premade ones, look on Etsy. 

  Glowing Ghost Luminaries

What You Need:

Empty Milk Gallons

Black Sharpie Marker

Tea Candles (1 for each milk gallon)

How To Do It: Draw a face on each milk gallon and place a tea light inside for a simple glowing ghost. 

  Bonfire Pit

What You Need:

Concrete Pavers or Bricks

Crushed Gravel

Water

Construction Adhesive

Fire Pit Bowl

How To Do It:

Clear an area for the pit and dig down about 7”

Pour the pit just over halfway full with crushed gravel

Add a small amount of water and pack the gravel down

Lay the first row of concrete pavers around the edge of the pit, adding construction adhesive to each block

Add a second layer of pavers, staggering them from the first layer so that there are no gaps

Insert the fire pit bowl

  Hidden Treasure

How To Do It: Bury various prizes and treats in a sandbox and let the kids hunt for their treasure.

  Quicksand Pit

What You Need:

Sandbox

Sand

Water

How To Do It: Fill the pit ⅔ of the way full with sand and fill the remaining ⅓ with water. 

  Glow In The Dark Paint On Your Boulders

Boulders are a fun and quick way to show your neighborhood that your yard is a big deal. Getting them delivered is a breeze and it can quickly transform a flat terrain to a fun landscape. 

What You Need:

Boulders

Glow in the dark paint (washable)

A spooky imagination

  Skeleton In A Wheelbarrow

How To Do It: Fill a wheelbarrow with dirt and place skeleton bones in it, to look like a skeleton was dug up from the ground. You can use either screened sand (easier to work with) or black pulverized dirt (more economical) or come by and pick up some free tailings and screenings.

We’d love for you to drop by and pick up some of these products for yourself. But, if you’d rather have us bring them to you, we’d be happy to do that. Feel free to purchase and order your delivery online or visit us in person.

The post 25 Simple Halloween Decoration Ideas For Your Landscape appeared first on Frador.

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Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor

Danielle Driscoll of Finding Silver Pennies has always loved celebrating Halloween. As a part of the Halloween/Harvest Style Challenge, we sent Danielle classic Halloween décor and let her make it her own.

Read on to find out how Danielle achieved a classic Halloween look that is also family friendly.

Family-Friendly Halloween Décor

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl my mom used to make me the most elaborate costumes – a mermaid, a wicked witch with a green face mask (ouch! It tightened on my face as I trick or treated around the neighborhood), a bride, Michael Jackson. I was always so excited to get dressed up and go out that I didn’t even want to eat dinner.

Fast forward a few decades and I still feel exactly the same way about Halloween. It’s rubbed off on my boys. They love getting dressed up and decorating our home.

They played a huge role helping decorate our home in this challenge. In fact, our oldest drew the witch that we used to create the silhouette.

We live in a coastal town and everyone here is crazy for Halloween. The main street in the harbor is shut off to traffic and the merchants fling open their doors for early trick or treating. Once it gets dark, people come up our hill to continue Halloween!

For The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge I knew I wanted to focus on classic Hallowee décor to go with our historic home. I also didn’t want to make it look too scary or gory.

When the surprise box from The Home Depot arrived, I was so excited because it came with amazingly realistic 36 in. LED Tombstone Assortment (Set of 4), a fog machine, fog machine liquid and a fog tube accessory kit.

My boys were so excited about the fog machine, as was I, because it instantly adds a creepy, Halloween vibe. We had so much fun playing with it and the gravestones. The gravestones light up, which is fun at night, too.

We got busy planning out our haunted front yard.

DIY Witch Silhouette

We created a witch based on our son’s sketch. In his sketch he included a cat and a cauldron.

Materials

¾-in. Plywood

Jigsaw

Rustoleum All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer

Step 1

First, sketch out some ideas on paper. We all were drawing witches and cats. Then we enlarged the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette we created a grid on the drawing.

Step 2

Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.

Step 3

Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.

Step 4

Fourth, use a jigsaw cut out the silhouette.

Step 5

Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.  I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.

Step 6

Finally, build a support (see below for step-by-step instructions).

Isn’t she spooky! We love her nose!

How to Build a Support for the Witch

Step 1

First, create an L shape with two lengths of 2 x 4 connecting with a pocket hole, we used the Kreg Jig to create the pocket hole.

Step 2

Second, cut a length of 2 x 4 with 45° cuts at each end.

Step 3

Third, use pythagorus calculate to determine where the diagonal should go. Position = square root of (length of diagonal squared/2). This ensures that the L shape is square.

Step 4

Fourth, attach hinges to one side of the vertical of the L support, and then attach to the back of the witch. Ensure that the bottom of the support is square with the bottom of the witch.

Pro Tip: The best way to make sure of this is to run a square along the bottom of the witch, and up the back, then place the support along the square edge

Step 5

Finally, attach a hook to opposite side of the support. To make sure that it stays open, attach the eye to the back of the witch.

The fog machine adds to the effect as does the gravestones.

Next up we thought it would be fun to make paper lanterns to line our brick walkway to lead the way up to our front door. These were so easy to make and didn’t cost much at all.

DIY Paper Lanterns

The Home Depot has really cute Halloween stencils that are miniature and great for smaller projects. They’d be cute on treat bags for a halloween party, banners, pillows or lanterns as we created. I picked up some paper lunch bags to stencil.

Step 1

First, separate your stencils. Line up stencil on a bag. You can use tape to hold it in place, but I just held it with my finger.

Step 2

Second, use black paint. I stenciled the images onto the bags using a stencil brush.

Step 3

Pro Tip: Offload most of the paint onto a paper towel from your stencil brush before stenciling. This prevents paint bleeding under the stencil and you’ll get a crisp image.

Third, weigh the bags down with rocks or stones. We used beach rocks.

Step 4

Finally, place a faux tea light in each one. This is safer than real candles and can be used multiple times.

It’s more fun with a little ninja helper, too!

Here you can see the pretty lanterns lining our walkway to greet trick or treaters.

DIY Nature-Inspired Fall Wreath

The other DIY project we did was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to do something inspired by nature and I had a branch wreath down in the basement.

Step 1

First, use black spray paint (the same as you did for the witch) to give the natural twig wreath a spooky feel.

Step 2

Then, dismantle an ostrich duster to use the feathers for the wreath. I used one duster for this wreath. I applied the feathers using hot glue (be careful not to burn your hand).

Step 3

Finally, you can embellish your wreath. I like to keep things simple so I left it has it is, but you could stick on crows, bones, skulls or whatever you’d like to use.

Here is a closer look at the wreath.

Here it is on the door.

Front Door Spiders

You’ll notice we added some spiders to our door. We wanted to give the appearance of spiders crawling across it.

We used WallPOP’s little spiders. We stuck them to the door and painted the trim surrounding it. They were so easy to apply, remove and reposition where needed. This is a great job for little ones to help with. My little Conor (the ninja) loved helping put the spiders on.

I wish you could hear him giggling as he did it. It was so sweet.

Add More Halloween Décor

Here’s a look at our yard decorated for Halloween.

We added a bag of bones in front of the gravestones. This set was great and came with an assortment of may different kind of bones, even some dinosaur bones! The kids were excited about that. I think each set is different. This skeleton’s eyes light up and are so creepy. I’ll show you them lit up a bit later on.

Our front steps are decorated with pumpkins and some fun lanterns from The Home Depot. These LED lanterns are battery operated. They give a spooky look once lit. They also look cute during the day. We used ones with spiders and witches to match our DIY witch.

Ferns and potato vines in our planters add softness to the overall look.

Each fall we carve pumpkins, but if you’re very busy and have a lot going on, The Home Depot has a few already cut, like this one. It is easy to plug in and gave lots of light without the worry of candles.

I also placed a caged raven on an old vintage stool. He talks and is so life-like.

Final Reveal

We enjoyed celebrating Halloween a tad earlier this year. It made it twice as fun!

The fog machine really adds to the ambience. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it a lot leading up to Halloween.

Here’s a look at some nighttime shots our new Halloween décor lit up.

See how eerie it looks at night with the red eyes on the skeleton and gravestone.

Add a little fog.

And DIY lanterns to light the way to lots of treats!

We can’t wait for Halloween now that all our DIY is done! I hope this gave you a few ideas of fun ways you can make your front yard more festive with your kids.

A huge thank you to The Home Depot for inviting me to take part in the Style Challenge. I had so much fun with my boys creating a spooky and classic Halloween front porch. Happy Halloween, everyone!

For more DIY Halloween and harvest ideas, see other articles in our Halloween Style Challenge series, and follow our Halloween Style Challenge board on Pinterest.

Visit The Home Depot’s online Halloween Décor Department for everything you need to decorate your home for Halloween and fall. Check out other scary skeleton decorations at The Home Depot.

The post Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor appeared first on The Home Depot Blog.

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Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor

Danielle Driscoll of Finding Silver Pennies has always loved celebrating Halloween. As a part of the Halloween/Harvest Style Challenge, we sent Danielle classic Halloween décor and let her make it her own.

Read on to find out how Danielle achieved a classic Halloween look that is also family friendly.

Family-Friendly Halloween Décor

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl my mom used to make me the most elaborate costumes – a mermaid, a wicked witch with a green face mask (ouch! It tightened on my face as I trick or treated around the neighborhood), a bride, Michael Jackson. I was always so excited to get dressed up and go out that I didn’t even want to eat dinner.

Fast forward a few decades and I still feel exactly the same way about Halloween. It’s rubbed off on my boys. They love getting dressed up and decorating our home.

They played a huge role helping decorate our home in this challenge. In fact, our oldest drew the witch that we used to create the silhouette.

We live in a coastal town and everyone here is crazy for Halloween. The main street in the harbor is shut off to traffic and the merchants fling open their doors for early trick or treating. Once it gets dark, people come up our hill to continue Halloween!

For The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge I knew I wanted to focus on classic Hallowee décor to go with our historic home. I also didn’t want to make it look too scary or gory.

When the surprise box from The Home Depot arrived, I was so excited because it came with amazingly realistic 36 in. LED Tombstone Assortment (Set of 4), a fog machine, fog machine liquid and a fog tube accessory kit.

My boys were so excited about the fog machine, as was I, because it instantly adds a creepy, Halloween vibe. We had so much fun playing with it and the gravestones. The gravestones light up, which is fun at night, too.

We got busy planning out our haunted front yard.

DIY Witch Silhouette

We created a witch based on our son’s sketch. In his sketch he included a cat and a cauldron.

Materials

¾-in. Plywood

Jigsaw

Rustoleum All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer

Step 1

First, sketch out some ideas on paper. We all were drawing witches and cats. Then we enlarged the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette we created a grid on the drawing.

Step 2

Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.

Step 3

Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.

Step 4

Fourth, use a jigsaw cut out the silhouette.

Step 5

Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.  I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.

Step 6

Finally, build a support (see below for step-by-step instructions).

Isn’t she spooky! We love her nose!

How to Build a Support for the Witch

Step 1

First, create an L shape with two lengths of 2 x 4 connecting with a pocket hole, we used the Kreg Jig to create the pocket hole.

Step 2

Second, cut a length of 2 x 4 with 45° cuts at each end.

Step 3

Third, use pythagorus calculate to determine where the diagonal should go. Position = square root of (length of diagonal squared/2). This ensures that the L shape is square.

Step 4

Fourth, attach hinges to one side of the vertical of the L support, and then attach to the back of the witch. Ensure that the bottom of the support is square with the bottom of the witch.

Pro Tip: The best way to make sure of this is to run a square along the bottom of the witch, and up the back, then place the support along the square edge

Step 5

Finally, attach a hook to opposite side of the support. To make sure that it stays open, attach the eye to the back of the witch.

The fog machine adds to the effect as does the gravestones.

Next up we thought it would be fun to make paper lanterns to line our brick walkway to lead the way up to our front door. These were so easy to make and didn’t cost much at all.

DIY Paper Lanterns

The Home Depot has really cute Halloween stencils that are miniature and great for smaller projects. They’d be cute on treat bags for a halloween party, banners, pillows or lanterns as we created. I picked up some paper lunch bags to stencil.

Step 1

First, separate your stencils. Line up stencil on a bag. You can use tape to hold it in place, but I just held it with my finger.

Step 2

Second, use black paint. I stenciled the images onto the bags using a stencil brush.

Step 3

Pro Tip: Offload most of the paint onto a paper towel from your stencil brush before stenciling. This prevents paint bleeding under the stencil and you’ll get a crisp image.

Third, weigh the bags down with rocks or stones. We used beach rocks.

Step 4

Finally, place a faux tea light in each one. This is safer than real candles and can be used multiple times.

It’s more fun with a little ninja helper, too!

Here you can see the pretty lanterns lining our walkway to greet trick or treaters.

DIY Nature-Inspired Fall Wreath

The other DIY project we did was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to do something inspired by nature and I had a branch wreath down in the basement.

Step 1

First, use black spray paint (the same as you did for the witch) to give the natural twig wreath a spooky feel.

Step 2

Then, dismantle an ostrich duster to use the feathers for the wreath. I used one duster for this wreath. I applied the feathers using hot glue (be careful not to burn your hand).

Step 3

Finally, you can embellish your wreath. I like to keep things simple so I left it has it is, but you could stick on crows, bones, skulls or whatever you’d like to use.

Here is a closer look at the wreath.

Here it is on the door.

Front Door Spiders

You’ll notice we added some spiders to our door. We wanted to give the appearance of spiders crawling across it.

We used WallPOP’s little spiders. We stuck them to the door and painted the trim surrounding it. They were so easy to apply, remove and reposition where needed. This is a great job for little ones to help with. My little Conor (the ninja) loved helping put the spiders on.

I wish you could hear him giggling as he did it. It was so sweet.

Add More Halloween Décor

Here’s a look at our yard decorated for Halloween.

We added a bag of bones in front of the gravestones. This set was great and came with an assortment of may different kind of bones, even some dinosaur bones! The kids were excited about that. I think each set is different. This skeleton’s eyes light up and are so creepy. I’ll show you them lit up a bit later on.

Our front steps are decorated with pumpkins and some fun lanterns from The Home Depot. These LED lanterns are battery operated. They give a spooky look once lit. They also look cute during the day. We used ones with spiders and witches to match our DIY witch.

Ferns and potato vines in our planters add softness to the overall look.

Each fall we carve pumpkins, but if you’re very busy and have a lot going on, The Home Depot has a few already cut, like this one. It is easy to plug in and gave lots of light without the worry of candles.

I also placed a caged raven on an old vintage stool. He talks and is so life-like.

Final Reveal

We enjoyed celebrating Halloween a tad earlier this year. It made it twice as fun!

The fog machine really adds to the ambience. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it a lot leading up to Halloween.

Here’s a look at some nighttime shots our new Halloween décor lit up.

See how eerie it looks at night with the red eyes on the skeleton and gravestone.

Add a little fog.

And DIY lanterns to light the way to lots of treats!

We can’t wait for Halloween now that all our DIY is done! I hope this gave you a few ideas of fun ways you can make your front yard more festive with your kids.

A huge thank you to The Home Depot for inviting me to take part in the Style Challenge. I had so much fun with my boys creating a spooky and classic Halloween front porch. Happy Halloween, everyone!

For more DIY Halloween and harvest ideas, see other articles in our Halloween Style Challenge series, and follow our Halloween Style Challenge board on Pinterest.

Visit The Home Depot’s online Halloween Décor Department for everything you need to decorate your home for Halloween and fall. Check out other scary skeleton decorations at The Home Depot.

The post Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor appeared first on The Home Depot Blog.

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Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor

Danielle Driscoll of Finding Silver Pennies has always loved celebrating Halloween. As a part of the Halloween/Harvest Style Challenge, we sent Danielle classic Halloween décor and let her make it her own.

Read on to find out how Danielle achieved a classic Halloween look that is also family friendly.

Family-Friendly Halloween Décor

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl my mom used to make me the most elaborate costumes – a mermaid, a wicked witch with a green face mask (ouch! It tightened on my face as I trick or treated around the neighborhood), a bride, Michael Jackson. I was always so excited to get dressed up and go out that I didn’t even want to eat dinner.

Fast forward a few decades and I still feel exactly the same way about Halloween. It’s rubbed off on my boys. They love getting dressed up and decorating our home.

They played a huge role helping decorate our home in this challenge. In fact, our oldest drew the witch that we used to create the silhouette.

We live in a coastal town and everyone here is crazy for Halloween. The main street in the harbor is shut off to traffic and the merchants fling open their doors for early trick or treating. Once it gets dark, people come up our hill to continue Halloween!

For The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge I knew I wanted to focus on classic Hallowee décor to go with our historic home. I also didn’t want to make it look too scary or gory.

When the surprise box from The Home Depot arrived, I was so excited because it came with amazingly realistic 36 in. LED Tombstone Assortment (Set of 4), a fog machine, fog machine liquid and a fog tube accessory kit.

My boys were so excited about the fog machine, as was I, because it instantly adds a creepy, Halloween vibe. We had so much fun playing with it and the gravestones. The gravestones light up, which is fun at night, too.

We got busy planning out our haunted front yard.

DIY Witch Silhouette

We created a witch based on our son’s sketch. In his sketch he included a cat and a cauldron.

Materials

¾-in. Plywood

Jigsaw

Rustoleum All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer

Step 1

First, sketch out some ideas on paper. We all were drawing witches and cats. Then we enlarged the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette we created a grid on the drawing.

Step 2

Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.

Step 3

Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.

Step 4

Fourth, use a jigsaw cut out the silhouette.

Step 5

Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.  I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.

Step 6

Finally, build a support (see below for step-by-step instructions).

Isn’t she spooky! We love her nose!

How to Build a Support for the Witch

Step 1

First, create an L shape with two lengths of 2 x 4 connecting with a pocket hole, we used the Kreg Jig to create the pocket hole.

Step 2

Second, cut a length of 2 x 4 with 45° cuts at each end.

Step 3

Third, use pythagorus calculate to determine where the diagonal should go. Position = square root of (length of diagonal squared/2). This ensures that the L shape is square.

Step 4

Fourth, attach hinges to one side of the vertical of the L support, and then attach to the back of the witch. Ensure that the bottom of the support is square with the bottom of the witch.

Pro Tip: The best way to make sure of this is to run a square along the bottom of the witch, and up the back, then place the support along the square edge

Step 5

Finally, attach a hook to opposite side of the support. To make sure that it stays open, attach the eye to the back of the witch.

The fog machine adds to the effect as does the gravestones.

Next up we thought it would be fun to make paper lanterns to line our brick walkway to lead the way up to our front door. These were so easy to make and didn’t cost much at all.

DIY Paper Lanterns

The Home Depot has really cute Halloween stencils that are miniature and great for smaller projects. They’d be cute on treat bags for a halloween party, banners, pillows or lanterns as we created. I picked up some paper lunch bags to stencil.

Step 1

First, separate your stencils. Line up stencil on a bag. You can use tape to hold it in place, but I just held it with my finger.

Step 2

Second, use black paint. I stenciled the images onto the bags using a stencil brush.

Step 3

Pro Tip: Offload most of the paint onto a paper towel from your stencil brush before stenciling. This prevents paint bleeding under the stencil and you’ll get a crisp image.

Third, weigh the bags down with rocks or stones. We used beach rocks.

Step 4

Finally, place a faux tea light in each one. This is safer than real candles and can be used multiple times.

It’s more fun with a little ninja helper, too!

Here you can see the pretty lanterns lining our walkway to greet trick or treaters.

DIY Nature-Inspired Fall Wreath

The other DIY project we did was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to do something inspired by nature and I had a branch wreath down in the basement.

Step 1

First, use black spray paint (the same as you did for the witch) to give the natural twig wreath a spooky feel.

Step 2

Then, dismantle an ostrich duster to use the feathers for the wreath. I used one duster for this wreath. I applied the feathers using hot glue (be careful not to burn your hand).

Step 3

Finally, you can embellish your wreath. I like to keep things simple so I left it has it is, but you could stick on crows, bones, skulls or whatever you’d like to use.

Here is a closer look at the wreath.

Here it is on the door.

Front Door Spiders

You’ll notice we added some spiders to our door. We wanted to give the appearance of spiders crawling across it.

We used WallPOP’s little spiders. We stuck them to the door and painted the trim surrounding it. They were so easy to apply, remove and reposition where needed. This is a great job for little ones to help with. My little Conor (the ninja) loved helping put the spiders on.

I wish you could hear him giggling as he did it. It was so sweet.

Add More Halloween Décor

Here’s a look at our yard decorated for Halloween.

We added a bag of bones in front of the gravestones. This set was great and came with an assortment of may different kind of bones, even some dinosaur bones! The kids were excited about that. I think each set is different. This skeleton’s eyes light up and are so creepy. I’ll show you them lit up a bit later on.

Our front steps are decorated with pumpkins and some fun lanterns from The Home Depot. These LED lanterns are battery operated. They give a spooky look once lit. They also look cute during the day. We used ones with spiders and witches to match our DIY witch.

Ferns and potato vines in our planters add softness to the overall look.

Each fall we carve pumpkins, but if you’re very busy and have a lot going on, The Home Depot has a few already cut, like this one. It is easy to plug in and gave lots of light without the worry of candles.

I also placed a caged raven on an old vintage stool. He talks and is so life-like.

Final Reveal

We enjoyed celebrating Halloween a tad earlier this year. It made it twice as fun!

The fog machine really adds to the ambience. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it a lot leading up to Halloween.

Here’s a look at some nighttime shots our new Halloween décor lit up.

See how eerie it looks at night with the red eyes on the skeleton and gravestone.

Add a little fog.

And DIY lanterns to light the way to lots of treats!

We can’t wait for Halloween now that all our DIY is done! I hope this gave you a few ideas of fun ways you can make your front yard more festive with your kids.

A huge thank you to The Home Depot for inviting me to take part in the Style Challenge. I had so much fun with my boys creating a spooky and classic Halloween front porch. Happy Halloween, everyone!

For more DIY Halloween and harvest ideas, see other articles in our Halloween Style Challenge series, and follow our Halloween Style Challenge board on Pinterest.

Visit The Home Depot’s online Halloween Décor Department for everything you need to decorate your home for Halloween and fall. Check out other scary skeleton decorations at The Home Depot.

The post Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor appeared first on The Home Depot Blog.

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[chocdono]

Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor

Danielle Driscoll of Finding Silver Pennies has always loved celebrating Halloween. As a part of the Halloween/Harvest Style Challenge, we sent Danielle classic Halloween décor and let her make it her own.

Read on to find out how Danielle achieved a classic Halloween look that is also family friendly.

Family-Friendly Halloween Décor

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl my mom used to make me the most elaborate costumes – a mermaid, a wicked witch with a green face mask (ouch! It tightened on my face as I trick or treated around the neighborhood), a bride, Michael Jackson. I was always so excited to get dressed up and go out that I didn’t even want to eat dinner.

Fast forward a few decades and I still feel exactly the same way about Halloween. It’s rubbed off on my boys. They love getting dressed up and decorating our home.

They played a huge role helping decorate our home in this challenge. In fact, our oldest drew the witch that we used to create the silhouette.

We live in a coastal town and everyone here is crazy for Halloween. The main street in the harbor is shut off to traffic and the merchants fling open their doors for early trick or treating. Once it gets dark, people come up our hill to continue Halloween!

For The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge I knew I wanted to focus on classic Hallowee décor to go with our historic home. I also didn’t want to make it look too scary or gory.

When the surprise box from The Home Depot arrived, I was so excited because it came with amazingly realistic 36 in. LED Tombstone Assortment (Set of 4), a fog machine, fog machine liquid and a fog tube accessory kit.

My boys were so excited about the fog machine, as was I, because it instantly adds a creepy, Halloween vibe. We had so much fun playing with it and the gravestones. The gravestones light up, which is fun at night, too.

We got busy planning out our haunted front yard.

DIY Witch Silhouette

We created a witch based on our son’s sketch. In his sketch he included a cat and a cauldron.

Materials

¾-in. Plywood

Jigsaw

Rustoleum All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer

Step 1

First, sketch out some ideas on paper. We all were drawing witches and cats. Then we enlarged the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette we created a grid on the drawing.

Step 2

Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.

Step 3

Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.

Step 4

Fourth, use a jigsaw cut out the silhouette.

Step 5

Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.  I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.

Step 6

Finally, build a support (see below for step-by-step instructions).

Isn’t she spooky! We love her nose!

How to Build a Support for the Witch

Step 1

First, create an L shape with two lengths of 2 x 4 connecting with a pocket hole, we used the Kreg Jig to create the pocket hole.

Step 2

Second, cut a length of 2 x 4 with 45° cuts at each end.

Step 3

Third, use pythagorus calculate to determine where the diagonal should go. Position = square root of (length of diagonal squared/2). This ensures that the L shape is square.

Step 4

Fourth, attach hinges to one side of the vertical of the L support, and then attach to the back of the witch. Ensure that the bottom of the support is square with the bottom of the witch.

Pro Tip: The best way to make sure of this is to run a square along the bottom of the witch, and up the back, then place the support along the square edge

Step 5

Finally, attach a hook to opposite side of the support. To make sure that it stays open, attach the eye to the back of the witch.

The fog machine adds to the effect as does the gravestones.

Next up we thought it would be fun to make paper lanterns to line our brick walkway to lead the way up to our front door. These were so easy to make and didn’t cost much at all.

DIY Paper Lanterns

The Home Depot has really cute Halloween stencils that are miniature and great for smaller projects. They’d be cute on treat bags for a halloween party, banners, pillows or lanterns as we created. I picked up some paper lunch bags to stencil.

Step 1

First, separate your stencils. Line up stencil on a bag. You can use tape to hold it in place, but I just held it with my finger.

Step 2

Second, use black paint. I stenciled the images onto the bags using a stencil brush.

Step 3

Pro Tip: Offload most of the paint onto a paper towel from your stencil brush before stenciling. This prevents paint bleeding under the stencil and you’ll get a crisp image.

Third, weigh the bags down with rocks or stones. We used beach rocks.

Step 4

Finally, place a faux tea light in each one. This is safer than real candles and can be used multiple times.

It’s more fun with a little ninja helper, too!

Here you can see the pretty lanterns lining our walkway to greet trick or treaters.

DIY Nature-Inspired Fall Wreath

The other DIY project we did was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to do something inspired by nature and I had a branch wreath down in the basement.

Step 1

First, use black spray paint (the same as you did for the witch) to give the natural twig wreath a spooky feel.

Step 2

Then, dismantle an ostrich duster to use the feathers for the wreath. I used one duster for this wreath. I applied the feathers using hot glue (be careful not to burn your hand).

Step 3

Finally, you can embellish your wreath. I like to keep things simple so I left it has it is, but you could stick on crows, bones, skulls or whatever you’d like to use.

Here is a closer look at the wreath.

Here it is on the door.

Front Door Spiders

You’ll notice we added some spiders to our door. We wanted to give the appearance of spiders crawling across it.

We used WallPOP’s little spiders. We stuck them to the door and painted the trim surrounding it. They were so easy to apply, remove and reposition where needed. This is a great job for little ones to help with. My little Conor (the ninja) loved helping put the spiders on.

I wish you could hear him giggling as he did it. It was so sweet.

Add More Halloween Décor

Here’s a look at our yard decorated for Halloween.

We added a bag of bones in front of the gravestones. This set was great and came with an assortment of may different kind of bones, even some dinosaur bones! The kids were excited about that. I think each set is different. This skeleton’s eyes light up and are so creepy. I’ll show you them lit up a bit later on.

Our front steps are decorated with pumpkins and some fun lanterns from The Home Depot. These LED lanterns are battery operated. They give a spooky look once lit. They also look cute during the day. We used ones with spiders and witches to match our DIY witch.

Ferns and potato vines in our planters add softness to the overall look.

Each fall we carve pumpkins, but if you’re very busy and have a lot going on, The Home Depot has a few already cut, like this one. It is easy to plug in and gave lots of light without the worry of candles.

I also placed a caged raven on an old vintage stool. He talks and is so life-like.

Final Reveal

We enjoyed celebrating Halloween a tad earlier this year. It made it twice as fun!

The fog machine really adds to the ambience. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it a lot leading up to Halloween.

Here’s a look at some nighttime shots our new Halloween décor lit up.

See how eerie it looks at night with the red eyes on the skeleton and gravestone.

Add a little fog.

And DIY lanterns to light the way to lots of treats!

We can’t wait for Halloween now that all our DIY is done! I hope this gave you a few ideas of fun ways you can make your front yard more festive with your kids.

A huge thank you to The Home Depot for inviting me to take part in the Style Challenge. I had so much fun with my boys creating a spooky and classic Halloween front porch. Happy Halloween, everyone!

For more DIY Halloween and harvest ideas, see other articles in our Halloween Style Challenge series, and follow our Halloween Style Challenge board on Pinterest.

Visit The Home Depot’s online Halloween Décor Department for everything you need to decorate your home for Halloween and fall. Check out other scary skeleton decorations at The Home Depot.

The post Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor appeared first on The Home Depot Blog.

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Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor http://ift.tt/2xuF25o

Danielle Driscoll of Finding Silver Pennies has always loved celebrating Halloween. As a part of the Halloween/Harvest Style Challenge, we sent Danielle classic Halloween décor and let her make it her own.

Read on to find out how Danielle achieved a classic Halloween look that is also family friendly.

Family-Friendly Halloween Décor

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl my mom used to make me the most elaborate costumes – a mermaid, a wicked witch with a green face mask (ouch! It tightened on my face as I trick or treated around the neighborhood), a bride, Michael Jackson. I was always so excited to get dressed up and go out that I didn’t even want to eat dinner.

Fast forward a few decades and I still feel exactly the same way about Halloween. It’s rubbed off on my boys. They love getting dressed up and decorating our home.

They played a huge role helping decorate our home in this challenge. In fact, our oldest drew the witch that we used to create the silhouette.

We live in a coastal town and everyone here is crazy for Halloween. The main street in the harbor is shut off to traffic and the merchants fling open their doors for early trick or treating. Once it gets dark, people come up our hill to continue Halloween!

For The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge I knew I wanted to focus on classic Hallowee décor to go with our historic home. I also didn’t want to make it look too scary or gory.

When the surprise box from The Home Depot arrived, I was so excited because it came with amazingly realistic 36 in. LED Tombstone Assortment (Set of 4), a fog machine, fog machine liquid and a fog tube accessory kit.

My boys were so excited about the fog machine, as was I, because it instantly adds a creepy, Halloween vibe. We had so much fun playing with it and the gravestones. The gravestones light up, which is fun at night, too.

We got busy planning out our haunted front yard.

DIY Witch Silhouette

We created a witch based on our son’s sketch. In his sketch he included a cat and a cauldron.

Materials

¾-in. Plywood

Jigsaw

Rustoleum All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer

Step 1

First, sketch out some ideas on paper. We all were drawing witches and cats. Then we enlarged the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette we created a grid on the drawing.

Step 2

Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.

Step 3

Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.

Step 4

Fourth, use a jigsaw cut out the silhouette.

Step 5

Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.  I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.

Step 6

Finally, build a support (see below for step-by-step instructions).

Isn’t she spooky! We love her nose!

How to Build a Support for the Witch

Step 1

First, create an L shape with two lengths of 2 x 4 connecting with a pocket hole, we used the Kreg Jig to create the pocket hole.

Step 2

Second, cut a length of 2 x 4 with 45° cuts at each end.

Step 3

Third, use pythagorus calculate to determine where the diagonal should go. Position = square root of (length of diagonal squared/2). This ensures that the L shape is square.

Step 4

Fourth, attach hinges to one side of the vertical of the L support, and then attach to the back of the witch. Ensure that the bottom of the support is square with the bottom of the witch.

Pro Tip: The best way to make sure of this is to run a square along the bottom of the witch, and up the back, then place the support along the square edge

Step 5

Finally, attach a hook to opposite side of the support. To make sure that it stays open, attach the eye to the back of the witch.

The fog machine adds to the effect as does the gravestones.

Next up we thought it would be fun to make paper lanterns to line our brick walkway to lead the way up to our front door. These were so easy to make and didn’t cost much at all.

DIY Paper Lanterns

The Home Depot has really cute Halloween stencils that are miniature and great for smaller projects. They’d be cute on treat bags for a halloween party, banners, pillows or lanterns as we created. I picked up some paper lunch bags to stencil.

Step 1

First, separate your stencils. Line up stencil on a bag. You can use tape to hold it in place, but I just held it with my finger.

Step 2

Second, use black paint. I stenciled the images onto the bags using a stencil brush.

Step 3

Pro Tip: Offload most of the paint onto a paper towel from your stencil brush before stenciling. This prevents paint bleeding under the stencil and you’ll get a crisp image.

Third, weigh the bags down with rocks or stones. We used beach rocks.

Step 4

Finally, place a faux tea light in each one. This is safer than real candles and can be used multiple times.

It’s more fun with a little ninja helper, too!

Here you can see the pretty lanterns lining our walkway to greet trick or treaters.

DIY Nature-Inspired Fall Wreath

The other DIY project we did was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to do something inspired by nature and I had a branch wreath down in the basement.

Step 1

First, use black spray paint (the same as you did for the witch) to give the natural twig wreath a spooky feel.

Step 2

Then, dismantle an ostrich duster to use the feathers for the wreath. I used one duster for this wreath. I applied the feathers using hot glue (be careful not to burn your hand).

Step 3

Finally, you can embellish your wreath. I like to keep things simple so I left it has it is, but you could stick on crows, bones, skulls or whatever you’d like to use.

Here is a closer look at the wreath.

Here it is on the door.

Front Door Spiders

You’ll notice we added some spiders to our door. We wanted to give the appearance of spiders crawling across it.

We used WallPOP’s little spiders. We stuck them to the door and painted the trim surrounding it. They were so easy to apply, remove and reposition where needed. This is a great job for little ones to help with. My little Conor (the ninja) loved helping put the spiders on.

I wish you could hear him giggling as he did it. It was so sweet.

Add More Halloween Décor

Here’s a look at our yard decorated for Halloween.

We added a bag of bones in front of the gravestones. This set was great and came with an assortment of may different kind of bones, even some dinosaur bones! The kids were excited about that. I think each set is different. This skeleton’s eyes light up and are so creepy. I’ll show you them lit up a bit later on.

Our front steps are decorated with pumpkins and some fun lanterns from The Home Depot. These LED lanterns are battery operated. They give a spooky look once lit. They also look cute during the day. We used ones with spiders and witches to match our DIY witch.

Ferns and potato vines in our planters add softness to the overall look.

Each fall we carve pumpkins, but if you’re very busy and have a lot going on, The Home Depot has a few already cut, like this one. It is easy to plug in and gave lots of light without the worry of candles.

I also placed a caged raven on an old vintage stool. He talks and is so life-like.

Final Reveal

We enjoyed celebrating Halloween a tad earlier this year. It made it twice as fun!

The fog machine really adds to the ambience. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it a lot leading up to Halloween.

Here’s a look at some nighttime shots our new Halloween décor lit up.

See how eerie it looks at night with the red eyes on the skeleton and gravestone.

Add a little fog.

And DIY lanterns to light the way to lots of treats!

We can’t wait for Halloween now that all our DIY is done! I hope this gave you a few ideas of fun ways you can make your front yard more festive with your kids.

A huge thank you to The Home Depot for inviting me to take part in the Style Challenge. I had so much fun with my boys creating a spooky and classic Halloween front porch. Happy Halloween, everyone!

For more DIY Halloween and harvest ideas, see other articles in our Halloween Style Challenge series, and follow our Halloween Style Challenge board on Pinterest.

Visit The Home Depot’s online Halloween Décor Department for everything you need to decorate your home for Halloween and fall. Check out other scary skeleton decorations at The Home Depot.

The post Family-Friendly & Classic Halloween Décor appeared first on The Home Depot Blog.

Danielle Driscoll