Holiday Decorating Ideas

The holiday season is upon us! If you have any doubts about this, just take a look in any store you go into or any store window you go past. Witches, ghosts, jack o’lanterns, black cats and candy corn adorn every corner.

Halloween is here and it’s traditional. Its colors have always been black and orange. And white is usually in the mix to add a ghostly element. In more modern times, purple is also added as an accent, along with copper metallic, to give your Halloween décor a more upscale and contemporary look.

If there is one “trend” it is all things “vintage”. Reproductions of vintage Halloween post cards, and reproductions of jack o’lantern figures, witches and ghosts from the 1930’s and 1940’s help baby boomers return to the holidays of their childhoods. In this way, we can also celebrate the holidays of our parents, and even our grandparents. After all, Halloween has become a huge family social occasion, with parties, trick-or-treating and Halloween decorating an important part of it all.

To make your Halloween even more “spooky”, try tying different lengths of purple, black and orange satin ribbon to the stems of apples. These make great party decorations as is, or can be used for “apple bobbing”.

You can take the same idea, and hang different lengths and widths of white satin and white sheer ribbon from doorway openings, and in front of windows, to create a “floating ghost” feeling. If you make a few of the ribbon streamers long enough to touch the top of your head, it will even enhance the “ghostlike” feeling!

Make a great Halloween party centerpiece, by combining multi-loop ribbon bows in copper and black lame, and place tall black tapered candles in the center, or even black and orange pillar candles. Then sprinkle candy corn around everything. Your guests can pick and munch on these! (Just make sure to put a large platter under the whole centerpiece, so you can move it easily.)

It’s pretty easy to move from Halloween forward into Harvest season, and then Thanksgiving. If you have carved faces into your pumpkins, simply turn them around, so that the uncarved side faces out, and add Indian corn, gourds, turkey feathers and berries, such as bittersweet to create a lush, “harvest” look.

This concept works great as outdoor décor, especially when accompanied by a large scarecrow. There are many fantastic ones to be found at farmers’ markets, and gift stores, and maybe even in your local supermarket. Of course, all of this is made even more dramatic and eye-catching by adding complementary ribbons and bows in orange, rust, chocolate, moss green, antique gold and yellow. Purple is still a great accent color with these warm tones, and you can find mum plants in lovely shades of lavender and purple to go along with this.

The most important thing is to have fun! It’s not a serious thing. Make sure the kids as well as moms, dads, grandmas and grandpas participate for a true family effort!

Harvest is closely followed by Thanksgiving. The fundamentals are already in place. Just add turkeys, cranberries, pilgrims and again, the “vintage” Thanksgiving trend items, like a banner reproduced from an old Thanksgiving postcard, or an antique cornucopia.

For Thanksgiving, you definitely want to embellish your front door, to give a warm welcome to your guests and neighbors. A dried wreath, made of leaves, berries, mini-gourds and “pods”, and embellished with a large multi-looped bow of seasonally colored ribbons is just the right touch.

Honestly, there’s no wrong way to do your holiday decorating. Don’t be intimidated! Let your imagination guide you, relax, and have fun! We don’t want your holidays to zip by too quickly, so we’ll tell you about Christmas trends and decorating ideas real soon!