giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge

A Bit of Gore for Our Halloween Porch Decor

October 17, 2020 / 20 Comments
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge

Last year was the very first time that we have decorated for Halloween. Up until then, my kids were content with cheap costumes and candy. Now that they are 7 and 9, they are getting much more into all things gory and bloody and creepy and gross…especially at Halloween time. Probably because that’s the only time this mom will indulge them!

Anyway, I promised to share our Halloween front porch decorations. It is nothing elaborate and probably a bit more silly than scary, but we had a lot of fun doing it.

Remember these giant animal heads from last Halloween…I wore one in my Halloween Costume look with Monica and the kids wore the others just for a bit of fun.

giant animal heads, Halloween
Halloween costumes, Shelbee on the Edge
Original Post

I found these giant costume heads at Target two years ago after Halloween. Everything was 90% off. These heads retailed for $30 a piece, but I only paid $3 each. That is a steal! Anyway, we wore them last year and then stored them in the basement. As some basements often do, ours gets very damp and musty leaving the things stored down there smelling equally damp and musty. This essentially ruined the giant animal heads for wear on our human heads because the stink is just too much to bear!

While I was disappointed by the demise of the giant heads, I had to remind myself that I only paid $3 a piece so no big loss there. But rather than just toss them in the trash, I solicited the help of Archie and Ralphie and the girl next door to bloodify the giant heads so we could create a gory front porch decoration. They were more than happy to oblige.

giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge

With just a few tubes of red and black paint and some paintbrushes, these amazing kids created some fabulously gory decapitated animal heads. Jeff then strung them up on an old hula hoop and dangled them from the front porch ceiling. We added our basic spider webs across the front but we still need a giant spider. Maybe we will bloodify the spider, too!

giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge

As a last minute addition, we decided to stick a toy rat in the gorilla’s eye socket. By the way, this rubber rodent scared the heck out of me a few weeks ago. I sat down in my garage to have a little smoke break and I looked down between my feet and saw the toy rat just sitting there staring at me. I screamed so loud and flung my feet into the air before I realized it was a damn toy! Well played, children, well played.

giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge

Oh my gosh, the rat in the eye socket totally cracks me up though! I think we might need a cleaver or something to stick in one of the heads as well.

The heads are kind of difficult to see through the spider web, but if you approach our house from a side angle, you can surely identify the bloody heads hanging there. I have a bit more that I would like to add to the front porch, but I may just wait until the post-Halloween sales and scoop up some things for next year at 90% off.

giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge
giant animal heads, Halloween decor, Shelbee on the Edge

I want to share one last photo…of the back of my house. I took this picture last weekend when we had a few friends over for dinner. I snuck outside for a little solitude break (I need those when there is too much social interaction).

As I sat there in the dark, gazing at my house all lit up from the inside, I could hear so much joyful laughter wafting out into the night air through the open windows. The sounds of the friendly conversation and abundant giggles combined with the peacefulness of our little box against the night sky brought tears to my eyes. We may not have much, our home is small and humble, but it literally overflows with love and joy and laughter. What more can we really want out of this life?

While Halloween is not the poster holiday for gratitude, I am feeling it in abundance these days.

Wishing you all safe, happy, and laughter-filled holidays this year! We all could use a little homespun joy, I’m sure!

Do you decorate for Halloween? What are your plans this year?

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Linking with these Link Parties.

I am a midlife woman, wife, and stay-at-home mother of 2 boys and 2 cats. I have a passion for helping other women feel fabulous in the midst of this crazy, beautiful life.

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