A Halloween Mantel

We made it to Friday! I am quite sure I am not the only one excited about that!!!!!! I was catching up on some blogs the other day and noticed that All Things Thrifty is doing a Halloween Linky Party every Friday starting today and running until 10/28. This is a place to put all of our Halloween ideas together.  Old ideas, new ideas, crafts, decorations, costumes, pumpkins, recipes etc! If it is Halloween, Brooke (and the rest of us) want to see it.
I went WAY out of my comfort zone last year and we decorated for Halloween. It was fun. I think it turned out quite well. I am not so sure we will go this route again this year, but only time will tell that. Whether we go this way again or not, I am definitely glad we have photos of it! I am going to post the mantel this week and I am thinking I will post the dining room next Friday (Perhaps I should get that post done now and get it scheduled to publish).
Anyway, here is last year's Halloween Mantel! This was the first year I had done anything like this! The combination of lights made it hard to photograph, but you can get the idea (and we weren't blogging then)!

The 'tree' on the right side of the mantel was actually a branch that dried better than I could have asked for and I am pretty sure we won't be doing that part again just for that reason. The heads on the 'tree' were part of a skeleton garland I purchased at the dollar store. We cut the heads from the garland and gave each of them their own loop to hang them with . The 'photos', the skull, the glow in the dark skeleton on the mirror, the cobwebs, the skeleton garland also came from the dollar store!

There were some old oven racks in the basement when we bought the house. We kept them for some reason. We pulled one out for this fireplace deco! Jim took a string of purple lights and wrapped them around the oven rack. We placed the oven rack in the back of the fire place and then set the gargoyle in the fireplace. (The gargoyle was purchased at TJ Maxx last year)

Cobwebs. Lots of cobwebs. Why do I work so hard the 11 months of the year to keep them from forming...

We had a black light sitting on the mantel to help with all the glow in the dark stuff. It had some cool effects.

I am linking this up to All Things Thrifty For the All Things Spooky Linky Party. I hope you will stop by and check out some of the other projects! Thanks for stopping by. Please leave some comment love and let us know you were here! Have fun getting ready for this year's Halloween.
~Jim, Jen and Jynx (Halloween is her favorite holiday!!!)