Super Easy Halloween Lighting and Decor!

I didn’t think Halloween was going to be any different before and after I started blogging. I mean what could possibly change? I was such a rookie because everything changed. So this years super cute and easy Halloween lighting decor, are brought to you by my exhausted self and my Christmas lights.

No really.

Christmas lights = easy Halloween lighting and decor

See, last Halloween was the moment when I realized how much of an influence having a blog has had on my expectations of Halloween. Especially the decorating part.

For example:

What Halloween is like when you don’t have a blog.

• Check your calendar. Halloween is in a couple of days. You don’t even flinch.
• Go to the dollar store. Buy fake plastic chains and some creepy ghosts and plastic skeletons. Buy Caution Tape. Hang all of the above on the porch and front door.
• Find the dress that your daughter wore once to a fancy event that you spent way too much money on and use dress up fairy wings you find in the toy box to make your fairy costume. Costume is done.
• Wait until the day of Halloween to buy as much candy on clearance. Pack some in a bag for your kid to take to school to hand out to classmates. Forget to add To and From name tags.
• Allow kids to carve their own pumpkins that wind up resembling nothing like a pumpkin face. Display them anyway.
• Pour yourself a glass of wine and hand out what’s left of the candy you didn’t eat while surfing Pinterest for Halloween decor ideasm and think “Hey I should try that next year…”

What Halloween is like when you’re a blogger.

• Check your Calendar. It’s August. You’re already behind in your posts. Social media has been sharing skulls and ghosts since July. You should know better. Put your phone down. Why are you still scrolling Instagram?
• Drag out of all the old Halloween decor that you DIY’ed last year from the dust covered box in your garage. Look at it in shame and think well “That was pinned last year, I can’t use it again.” Donate it all to your kids school Halloween dance.
• Go back on social that you just stopped scrolling. Spend hours on Pinterest making sure that your theme for this years decorations do not copy any other blogger. Cross off 99 out of 100 of your ideas.
• Go to every craft store on the planet and gather as many mason jars as possible to create a masterpiece Halloween lighting display. Buy as many tea light candles as you can fit in your car trunk.
• Work tirelessly on your kids Halloween costumes. Spend more gas money than the product is worth to find just the right jewelry piece for the costume that no one but you will ever really notice.
• Scour You Tube makeup tutorials to match costumes. Debate asking your friends sister who is a makeup artist to come over and do a photo shoot before Trick or Treating.
• Carve pumpkins to match your front porch, that now has a decor theme to match your kids costumes.
• Contemplate various techniques to extend the life of your Jack O’ Lantern that you spent a week carving
• Make a personalized Halloween treat bag for all your kids schoolmates and neighborhood kids on the block with bakers twine and carefully selected one of a kind, not store bought, printable name tags.
• Forget to drink wine and because you’re so stressed trying to get photos of your kids so you can edit a final Halloween post to get online before midnight, while simultaneously noticing in horror on your Instagram feed, that someone else already did your decor ideas last year.

I am being very facetious of course. But if you laughed even once, you understand what I mean.

Well, this is the year Halloween and I got a divorce.

Last year’s Halloween caused an Ah-Ha moment. The one where I went, this has gotten out of control. Please don’t get me wrong, I love to decorate and craft and so on. But something changed last Halloween.

For starters Halloween last year lasted 20 minutes.

TWENTY MINUTES.

That’s how long Trick or Treating was because we had a huge rainstorm complete with ice pellets and slush. Welcome to a Canadian Halloween. It was windy, freezing and miserable.

And a funny thing happened. When I didn’t stress out about my porch decorations, I wound up having the best Halloween decor that I could have asked for and I made NOTHING.

So this year, I stopped. The only thing I focused on were my kids costumes, because that’s a project that we both enjoy doing. For them, that’s the most important part next to trick or treating.

Instead I got to concentrate on my little Maleficent and Princess Aurora, and capture it all on my Nikon D3300.

Presenting the super simple Halloween decorations.

What did I do differently this year?

Carve the pumpkins, that were exactly the same patterns as 2 years ago. There’s a real life content creator horror eh?

Then I added some non-carved, unpainted mini pumpkins.

 ISO 4000, f/5.0,  1/60s

 ISO 1800, f/3.5, 1/30s

ISO 4000, f/4.0, 1/40s

ISO 5000, f/3.5, 1/30s

Hung up the chandelier and crow, that I used last year.

ISO 6400, f/3.8, 1/40s

The lanterns were already there as they stay out during the Fall and Winter for Christmas.

I even hung up our white Christmas lights on the birch tree branches vs buying Halloween lights.

I’ll say it again, Christmas lights equals easy and cute Halloween decor. Game changing. I have used them every year since this Halloween.

 ISO 1600, f/3.8, 1/30s

 ISO 1400, f/4.0, 1/40s

 ISO 3600, f/3.8, 1/30s

So how did this years Halloween go?

It was awful. No really.

It rained even harder, we had less kids show up trick or treating and it even wound up snowing overnight. My Maleficent got soaked despite having to bring an umbrella, and had to leave her super cool Maleficent staff at home after the first 30 minutes.

My little Princess Aurora went to three – count ’em – 3 homes with my husband. Then she said, “Yeah I am done with trick or treating in this weather”, came home and spent the evening handing out treats with me.

All while wearing her costume.

But these are the real life moments, the ones that we remember. The ones would be awfully boring if they all were perfect.

They’re the ones looking back in 20 years that we’ll have beautiful photos to show of the 4th Halloween in a row where it was rained out.

The funny story where my younger daughter refused to trick or treat and proved she is just like her Daddy (aka Clark Griswold), who dislikes Halloween.

And how Mom discovered that Christmas lights make the best and least stressful, best Halloween lighting decor ever.

Disclosure: I am part of the Mom Central Canada Nikon MOMents team and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.