10 easy, inexpensive Halloween decor ideas

If anyone understands the potential cost of Halloween, it's my family.

Starting this week, every room in my house will make a creepy transformation - yes, even the bathroom. While we tend to reserve the more expensive animated monsters for the yard, the cost for some of the little inside decor pieces can really add up.

Over the years, we've amassed a sizeable collection of spooktacular Halloween decorations, so much so my husband often jokes that we should stick an "open" sign on the front door and start selling things off. (Over my dead - or undead - body!)

But if this is your first all-out Halloween house make-over, don't worry, you don't have to go into debt to give your home a creepy vibe. I'm still adding to my collection - and I've long since been given a restricted budget. Which means, I need to be creative.

Here's 10 simple ways you can bring a little Halloween fun into your house this October:

1. Fill candy jars with candy corn and other seasonal treats. I lucked out at a garage sale and found a pumpkin-shaped dish, but mason jars, vases, or bowls in peculiar shapes can be seasonally inspired with black and orange ribbon.

2. Freeze plastic spiders in an ice cube tray to spook up your morning orange juice or evening glass of milk. This is great for Halloween parties, too.

3. Wrap an extra toilet paper roll in orange tissue paper and use a sharpie to draw a Jack-O-Lantern face. A simple - and somewhat functional - bathroom decoration. (I also used green for Frankenstein, and white for ghosts.)

4. Package candy corn in a baggie and tag "Rotten Pumpkin Teeth" to hand out at Halloween or just gift visitors throughout the month.

5. Use black balloons and black streamers to make spiders for the corner of any room, or as a giant centre of the room piece for a Halloween party.

6. Cut black construction paper into bat shapes and glue on googly eyes from the craft store. Tape your bats to the walls and create your own bat cave.

7. Replace all of the candles in your house with black or purple votives and tapers. Light them often.

8. Create a CD with all of your favorite Halloween-inspired music. Don't forget the classics, like Monster Mash. I play Halloween music like most people play Christmas tunes - piped throughout the house, all day long.

9. For an inexpensive table centrepiece, buy a dollar store plastic skull head. Cut a hole in the centre and insert a long tapered candle. Don't worry about the wax drippings - it all adds to the creepiness. You can also find inexpensive black tablecloths to give your table a more formal appearance.

10. Add googly eyes to your family photos, or replace your traditional pictures with spooky images printed from the internet.

Of course, this is just a start - and hopefully, this list has inspired you to look for other creative, inexpensive decor ideas. But you may want to hurry. There's only 22 sleeps until Halloween.

- Dawn