Halloween Outdoor Skull Planters For Porch Decor

For the record, I adore holiday decor, specifically Halloween and Christmas decor. Each year, I add one or two items to my collection. This year’s addition is a pair of outdoor skull planters to place on our back porch. While we call it a porch, it’s more like a backstoop.

Outdoor skull planter spray painted light blue sitting on a back stoop filled with white mums, surrounded by pink mums and pumpkins

Technically, I acquired the planters last season in a post-Halloween sale at JoAnn’s Fabrics. I did notice they have them again this year so lookout for some post-spooky season sales. They cost under $10 for the pair. When I saw that price, they hopped in my cart so fast!

The game plan was to spray paint them a fun color. I’m obsessed with the dark green/light blue color combo, which is found throughout our home. So true to form, I chose a light blue spray paint to sit against our dark green door.

Here’s what the planters looked like before I painted them.

A pair of skull planters that are dark gray and black in color sitting in a room with white floors and wall planking

Spray Painting The Planters

Spray painting the planters was super simple. Just clean them well, spray prime a couple of coats, spray paint a couple of coats, and let them dry really well before planting.

Here’s the spray paint and primer I chose to use:

Rustoleum spray primer and Rustoleum spray paint in French Blue

It’s the Rust-Oleum white spray primer (Home Depot) and Rust-Oleum French Blue spray paint (Home Depot).

2024 Halloween Outdoor Decor

While I’m at it, let’s take a little tour of all the outdoor Halloween decor that we set out this year on our porch, albeit a little later than I like but better late than never.

Halloween porch decor with skeletons, mums, pumpkins, light blue skull planters, and creepy bugs

One tip when decorating for any holiday is to consolidate your decorations into dedicated spaces. Most of us don’t have the time and money to go all Hallmark movie-level decorating on our homes. I wish I could. Maybe someday I will (hashtag goals). So pick one or two spots and focus on the decor there.

With Halloween, I mostly decorate the girls’ room and this back porch slash stoop.

Meet Chuck And Larry Skeleton

Chuck and Larry are our skeletons. Their names change every year along with their location. Sometimes they do something weird and sometimes they just like to hang out. This year, they’re just hanging out on the porch.

A posable skeleton sitting on a back stoop along with mums and pumpkins for Halloween

Bea, our three-year-old, has quite an obsession with the skeletons. She hugs them, tells them stories, plays with them, etc. It’s adorable and I’m soaking it all in.

Dead Mums

Let me tell you a little story about the dead mums on the porch. You see, I just bought mums for our porch last week. And let’s just say that when you buy mums in mid-October, it’s slim pickings. In the words of our pre-schooler, “you get what you get and you don’t get upset.

So I took what I could get. Some of the mums were peaking and some were almost past bloom and needed deadheading.

I almost didn’t finish this post because, in my perfect mums and pumpkins world, there would be no dead mums. BUT I didn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good and rolled with it. Plus it kind of goes with the skeletons.

Halloween outdoor decor including a skeleton, variety of mums, ornamental kale, pumpkins, light blue skull planters, and fake bugs

I had this vision of posing a skeleton to hold a watering can and a hoard of spiders (fake spiders) comes spilling out of the can and completely covering the dead mums. But you know what is even harder than finding healthy mums in mid-October? Finding fake spiders on October 23rd.

I found candy canes and Christmas lights, but no store I visited had fake spiders. Which brings me to…

Spooky Bugs

When I was at Michaels, where Christmas had overtaken Halloween in the prime retail real estate battle, I found the bugs in a clearance corner. I found ALL kinds of bugs. Bugs that looked more real than the typical plastic bugs I usually find.

I bought them all.

The house flies (Michaels) found a home on the kale.

Fake flies sitting on a potted ornamental kale plant on a porch next to pumpkins and mums

The scorpions (Michaels) live on the mums. And the black lucanus (Michaels) are trekking down a pumpkin and across the deck.

Fake bugs crawling down a pumpkin and across deck boards as outdoor Halloween decor

I love these bugs. There’s a part of me that wants to order as many as I can and have a small, shoebox-sized tote of bugs to pick from for Halloween decor. The things I choose to be extra about…

Butterflies On A Wreath

Do you remember the snake wreath I made last year? It would be perfect on our door but alas I cannot find it.

I am a meticulous organizer and packer-upper-of-things. I don’t just lose things, especially of this size. Everything Halloween has a section in the attic. I do not understand how a snake wreath disappears.

I do remember the wreath broke after a certain little girl pulled some snakes off. I do not remember fixing it. So who knows? It could be in Colby’s shop or the basement, two places that are just as scary to me as that wreath.

In place of the snake wreath, I stole the wreath from our dining room and added some butterflies (Michaels) to it for a little extra decor.

White fall wreath with butterflies on it hanging on a dark green door outside

It’s an old Studio McGee for Target wreath that I got on super clearance this year. It typically lives in our dining room, which is feeling a little naked. The Christmas wreath may need to go up on the door on November 1st this year to right the wreath rotation ship.

There’s Always Next Year

I’m just a smidge disappointed that I didn’t do much for Halloween decorating this year. Even the girls’ room is super sad with just their Halloween books piled on a desk. But I’m giving myself grace especially since I’ve been sick for much of the fall season.

So next year, I’m going to start decorating in July. Just kidding. Kind of.

Outdoor Halloween decor on a porch with skeletons, mums, pumpkins, skull planters, and fake bugs

Pssst… So tell me, did you decorate for Halloween? Did you find any new finds this year? Or do you have some tried-and-true decorations that you pull out year after year? Those are my favorites! I want our girls to remember the skeletons we pose each year and the crows I hang on the dining room light fixture.

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