Halloween Arrives Early to Catty-Corner Cottage! A Decor Tour

This year has sucked. It just has. There have been moments of joy, but we’re all just exhausted from the fear, news, and devastation of 2020.

It’s time for the joy of fall. The enjoyment of Halloween.

A couple weekends ago, I took down the dusty rabbit statues and silk flowers I’ve had up since early March, wiped down my counters, and pulled out the boxes of Halloween decor. It has been a few years since I’ve decorated for Halloween, because I had just lost the focus of what I love about the holiday. Thankfully this year I narrowed down my aesthetic loves to two themes:

Over the Garden Wall, and Witch’s Apothecary.

If you’ve never seen Over the Garden Wall, I extremely highly recommend it. It’s a folkloric, nostalgic, magical cartoon miniseries and the feel of it, especially episode 2 “Hard Times at the Huskin Bee,” demonstrates exactly what I love about a good Halloween.

Over the Garden Wall fan art by Svieta-SV on DeviantArt

So let’s get on with it, shall we? Let’s go on a tour of my Halloween decor.

First of all, let me share the “Decorate With Me/House Tour” video I made. This gives an overall good look at the decor:

Although I enjoyed making the video, it’s hard to get shots of details, so here are some photos of all the decor this Halloween.

As I mentioned in the video, the dining room had to remain more “autumnal” than spooky, since the Twelve Dancing Princesses meander across all four walls and grinning jack-o-lanterns just don’t go with the mood of the space.

So I put a glass pumpkin on a riser made from an antique tin I own, surrounding it with a teal colored knit scarf, teal and orange pumpkins, and teal candlesticks. A burnt orange lace leaf runner, teal chargers, and leaf plates from Dollar Tree help set the mood. Finally I added gold napkins with mushroom napkin rings.

The cats constantly get up in this giant front window in the living room, so I kept the display simple: just a couple of pumpkins, and some fall silk foliage displayed in my ball & claw bottle to add a touch of spooky.

The living room coffee table display started out with another lace leafy runner. I added a selection of leaf scatter, and various pumpkins and candle holders to celebrate the season. This especially looks pretty at night.

Adley, my Wendy Froud troll, has a new flower crown for every season, and Autumn is no exception.

Her faerie friend Clover sits next to a vignette of leaves and mushrooms in a fox mug.

Normally this bookshelf in the living room holds our collection of Jim Shore Disney figures, but we thought we’d try something new for Halloween, and clear the whole thing out to make room for even more festive seasonal celebration. When fall is over, we will take this down and replace with Christmas decorations, and then switch back to our usual figurines after that.

These three vintage figures were from Walmart, and I love them so much.

I also got a bit obsessed with gathering the entire collection of mini potion bottles from Target this year. I got the last one after this photo was taken, and now have all fourteen.

The next shelf down has our countdown calendar (this photo was obviously taken a bit ago) and some potion bottles. Crow’s Feet, Bottled Magic (No Guarantee) And Authentic Black Cat Hisses. I’m looking for a fourth bottle to finish off the symmetry. The two fuzzy felt pumpkins are from Target dollar spot.

Our next shelf has two book boxes, the left one is from Michaels, and the right one is from Home Goods. Two more potion bottles/jars sit to either side of a very friendly vintage-style grinning black cat. I still need to fill the Bone Powder bottle with something white. I’m not sure what. Salt?

On the bottom shelf are two more potions from Target dollar spot, some velvet pumpkins, and my favorite figurine we’ve bought this year, three black cats in a squash car. They may look cutesy, but the old early 20th-century Halloween postcards I love are filled with imagery like this. Tom says the three cats are Corvin (our dearly beloved departed black cat) and Cinder and Ella.

Even Over the Garden Wall knows the classic-ness of a squash car, or in this case, watermelon.

This little dapper fox bust on my sofa side table stays out year round, but I added three black and white patterned pumpkins around him, all from Target dollar spot, and an orange leaf tray.

These two tapestry banners are also new this year, from Walmart. The retro Halloween look was irrisistible.

My mantel is often one of my favorite places to decorate for holidays, and I had such fun creating the vignette for this Halloween.

Probably almost a decade ago, we picked up this bunting at our local antique and craft shop. It could be reproduction, but my suspicion is that it’s an original vintage/antique piece, and I love it so so much. It’s arguably my favorite Halloween decor item I own.

I really enjoy using these candles every year, and they are so easy to make! I just bought seven-day candles at Dollar Tree, drew the letters on with sharpie using a spindly, Tim Burtonesque font, and when they all burn down, I’ll just buy more and do it again!

A super easy haunted mirror DIY I made several years ago, instructions are on my old blog here.

Now for the witch’s apothecary corner! The shelf is from Target dollar spot this year. The left bottle is an essence bottle reproduction from Weta Workshop. The two smaller bottles are actually teas from a set I was gifted to photograph for a feature in the magazine, but I think they work here! The Feather of a Raven bottle is also from Target dollar spot this year. I filled it with black feathers and added a crow/raven stopper I bought at Target a few years ago. And the essence bottle on the right was made by me for the miniseries debut last year.

Here’s the dragon scale pumpkin I bought at At Home this year. I saw it and was utterly instantly smitten. I had no idea where I was going to end up putting it, but I think it makes perfect sense in the witch’s apothecary area.

This little original artwork is by Hearthstone Fables.

Right next to the apothecary area, I placed this awesome large sign from Target dollar spot this year. I love it so much! Two crows sit on top, and a Mythologie candle is in front.

The couch gets a touch of holiday spirit with an autumn-colored plaid fleece blanket and two grinning burlap pillows from Target dollar spot.

Now to the front entry we go. A purple velvet witch hat sits on the hall bench. The two figures on the floor, Lucius the ghost, and the little black cat, are both very sentimentally important to us.

I love the way the vignette turned out all around and on my hall table and mirror. On the right, I have a sign from Dollar Tree for the Black Hats Society, and I placed my own black witch hat on the lantern below it. On the right, a sign for Broom Parking from Target dollar spot, and I put my besom from Nightshade Handmade along with another broom under the sign.

This mindblowingly gorgeous cross stitch was made by a friend of ours. At the time we only had one black cat. Now we have two siblings, so it’s even more perfect. The little figurine is from Walmart a couple of years ago.

Super cute votive candleholders from Dollar Tree this year.

A sweet velvet pumpkin in the center.

A needlepoint from a garage sale. If you look closely, I think that’s supposed to be raking leaves outside the window, but to me it looks like a little fairy harassing the cat. Heehee. Two small figures are from Walmart a couple years ago.

Old reproduction postcards are tucked into the four mirror corners.

The kitchen and bathroom get these cute little towels I got at Kohls a few years ago. I love how they’re simultaneously sweet and spooky.

Finally, just to drive the whole Over the Garden Wall theme home, we just received these four tarot card artworks from QuarterPress on Etsy. We chose Greg, Wirt, Enoch, and The Beast. They are framed and hanging above the living room TV for the Halloween season.

I haven’t done it yet, but I plan to make something like the below Over the Garden Wall display and add it to the wall at the center of the artworks, with the strands dangling down and around. Here’s the original photo source. Isn’t it brilliant??

So I would love to know about your decorating plans. Have you decorated for Halloween? More of a general autumn decor person? What sort of symbols and items and themes do you enjoy decorating with?