My favorite time of the year is upon us! I know I am not alone when I say I LOVE fall weather! It is a nice welcome from the hot and humid summer heat and it brings cooler temps and changing leaves.

One of the things I love so much about the fall season is the decorating! I enjoy bringing out the pumpkins, leaves, and acorns. It is the official start of decorating season in my house and I look forward to it each and every year. To kick off the decorating season is Halloween! Scary? Fun? Contemporary? The choice is yours! The possibilities are endless as you prepare to decorate your apartment home for the Halloween season.

An even better part about decorating for his fun holiday is that there are several ways that you can decorate inexpensively and you can do it yourself!

A DIY project with your family or friends is a great way to customize your projects and make them fun and original. I have a set of crafty boys at my house so we do all sorts of fun projects and set their finished products all over the home for all to enjoy. Not sure where to start? Try some of these ideas and I am sure your wheels will start spinning!

Coffee Cans/ Canned Foods

Coffee drinkers, this is for you! Keep your empty metal coffee cans because they are great to use in projects. You can use these in several ways. Take a metal coffee can and paint it a color of your choice. I typically pick black but feel free to use whichever colors fit your personality and décor. Decorate them to look like scary monsters or witches or black cats for the season. You can glue eyes to the can to create part of the face.

Construction paper or paint can be used to create the mouth or nose or warts or whatever you want to add to the can. Pipe cleaners are great additions as well because they can serve as arms, ears, horns, tails, etc. Want more of a 3D effect? Styrofoam balls are great additions to projects! They can be painted numerous colors and simply glued onto the can to give you the look you are after.

Once you have painted the can and added all of your fun additions step back and look at your customized product that you created! These are cheap, cute, and personalized to decorate your home with!

The same principle with the coffee cans can be applied to canned food. These are smaller cans so they are perfect for adding small touches throughout the house. One of my favorite projects that I completed with canned food is letter cans!

We painted the cans either solid black or solid orange. They cut out letters with either orange or black construction paper. Hammer small pin holes throughout the can. Once that's complete, glue letters to each individual can. The black cans received orange letters and the orange cans received black letters. We choose the word “Spooky” to spell out but you can choose whatever word you choose!

Place a battery-operated tea light in them and it is complete! You can add ribbon or other decoration to personalize even more if you choose. These cans line one side of my kitchen counter facing the living room during Halloween. It is super cute with the dancing flames from the tea light and the best part is we created it ourselves to add to our home holiday decor.

Milk Cartons:

Do you go through milk at your home like I do at mine? I am always buying a gallon of milk! Recycle those empty milk cartons and use them in your Halloween decorations. They make perfect ghosts. Clean out your milk carton, use a black Sharpe marker to draw the eyes and the mouth, insert a battery-operated tea light or clear Christmas light strands and you now have ghosts! Yes, it really is that simple

Pumpkins:

One of the easiest things to bring into the home to decorate...and no it doesn’t have to be carved! The common misconception is that pumpkins have to be carved. There are a number of ways to decorate a Halloween pumpkin without carving it. And you pick the size, color, and shape of the pumpkin you want to use!

Use Halloween ribbon and tie a large bow at the top of the pumpkin and wallah! You have a decorated pumpkin! Want a little more than just ribbon? You can use glitter, buttons, stones, etc. to spell out words on your pumpkin. Spelling the word “Boo” or “Spooky” with some fun stones and decorative ribbon makes for a cute pumpkin that fits right into the holiday season. My kids paint scary and happy faces on their pumpkins and they are creative and personalized. They each decorate their very own and are eager to show it off and for it to be on display. It is a fun project that they enjoy and it's quality time spent together.

Decorating your home for any holiday does not have to be expensive. There are several projects that use things you already have to create your own decor that fits the personalities of your home!

Perhaps you prefer to just decorate for fall so that it carries you through Thanksgiving! Here are some great tips to get you started in the fall season! Look around your home and let your imagination go wild. Wine bottles, paper grocery sacks, empty jars, old sheets, etc can all be transformed into a fun holiday decoration. I am sure you will find all sorts of things you can use to make your beautiful Camden home holiday perfect!