* Please note that this post makes many references to Cricut, a company that I have previously worked with, although this blog post is not a sponsored post.

Just a quick post from me this week, as I just wanted to share my DIY Halloween decor! This year I created everything myself using my Cricut crafting machine, some Pinterest inspiration and a crazy idea for some ‘scary trees’ around the entrance using dead twigs, hollowed pumpkins and some concrete!!

First off, let’s start with the pumpkins. These are real pumpkins and this year I sprayed them using the small craft tins of PlastiKote spray paint that I purchased in my local DIY store. I used rainbow colours and sprayed the stalk of the pumpkins gold for contrast. I’d long admired the typography, sloganed pumpkins that you find all over Pinterest. Thanks to now owning a Cricut cutting machine, this year I could print off my chosen slogans onto adhesive vinyl, which I then peeled back and stuck onto the pumpkins.

As I am lucky enough to have quite a grand entrance to my home, I removed the two bay trees that stand on the entrance plinths and replaced them with these ‘scary trees’ full of bats! To create the scary trees, I hollowed out two pumpkins and filled them with quick-setting post-crete, which is the type of cement that holds up fence posts. A big bag of post-crete costs around £4, and I just filled each empty pumpkin up with a third of water, then poured in some post-crete and gave it a quick stir. Inserting the twigs into the freshly poured post-crete, I held my twigs in place for around 8 minutes while they set in place. As well as holding the ‘trees’ upright, the post-crete is heavy and stops my trees from blowing over in the in the wind.

Once the post-crete had fully set, I added a vinyl ‘trick’ and ‘treat’ sticker to each pumpkin, then super-glued some foam bats to the twigs. Again, I used my Cricut machine to cut out the bat shapes on craft foam that I purchased at Hobbycraft.

The last thing I created was my own personal Halloween t-shirt to greet all my trick or treaters! Using Cricut’s Infusible Ink line, I created the design then heat transferred it on to a plain white t-shirt.

Happy Halloween! I hope you have a good one!

Melanie xx