OK, so first of all: Yes, this is a Halloween Post. Yes, I know what month it is. Yes, I have a calendar. (That last one was for Chris. His favorite joke lately is “Kennedy, go buy your mom a calendar. So funny, right?)
I’m doing this for you! After you see this, you may possibly get the inkling to make one yourself and now you’ll have plenty of time to assemble your materials.
See how nice I am?
Plus Kennedy and I have been in full-on Halloween gear-up mode for about three weeks now and I couldn’t wait any longer!
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Now, this is not going to be a post bashing Pottery Barn Kids and their prices. I really love Pottery Barn and would buy everything from them if I could. I often order gifts for others from their website, but when I saw this idea in their latest catalogue, I thought I could make a decent version of their idea with Kennedy and it would be a fun way for us to spend some time together. Plus it cost me like $11 in materials.
This was such a fun project. We picked up some felt in orange, black and white.
The “body” of the haunted house is made up of full-sized felt pieces spaced out with smaller black rectangles. All pieces were attached with hot glue.
The “real” version has a few details that ours doesn’t, so we tried to add in a few easy details, like the scalloped edging there, to make it feel a little more special.
Cutting out the pockets was pretty simple, especially since the “inspiration” model had slightly imperfect looking pockets too. It just makes it look more “haunted”!
We cut out a few ghosts, pumpkins, and (the piece de resistance!) a little spider, stuck em’ on, and had some instant Halloween fun to hang up anywhere we wanted.
To mimic the different fonts and types of letting and numbering in the inspiration version, we used a mixture of scrap booking stickers and hand-drawn numbers.
Overall, the effect is not too bad!
The time commitment overall was probably about 2 hours spread out over a few days.
Well worth it I’d say to start a new tradition that just may last for years!
Go ahead and start your own new tradition this year too!
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.