{Spooky} skulls

I'm not really into gore and I will fully admit that I hate detest ABHOR being scared. So when it comes to Halloween... I've never been a huge fan.

(ask my old friend Jennifer about the Halloween in 3rd grade when her dad and uncle showed up to our classroom dressed up as Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde looking for a "head" to take back to their "lab"... and I hid... under my desk... crying hysterically... for about 45 minutes. And to be honest, if someone did the same thing today at my office, I'd probably react the same exact way in my humble little cubicle!!  Yeah, saying that I'm not a fan of being scared is an UNDERSTATEMENT!)

So when it comes to decorating for Halloween, I have always tended to keep things on the ~lighter~ side of the holiday. Especially with 2 little girls in the house who do not need to be up all night with nightmares. So I usually opt for a few foam pumpkins here and there, some cartoonish cardboard cutouts taped to the doors in the kitchen and a handful of real pumpkins decorated by the kids with stickers and "push-piece" faces (like these from last year)...

But this year, I've been inspired by some of the Halloween decor I've been seeing out there in blogland lately. Maaaaaaybe I could tackle something a liiiiiitle more spooky. So I hit the Dollar Tree to see what I could find that wouldn't be too costly, too gory or too {scary} (And, yes, I'll blame that one on the kids as long as I can - hahahahahahaha!). One of the first creations I came up with was inspired by Shelley over at House of Smiths from THIS POST. In particular, I really liked this arrangement...

Courtesy House of Smiths

So I decided to do a modified version of it... First, I pulled out a fish-bowl type vase I already had and dumped in a bag of river rocks from the Dollar Tree...

Then I added a layer of Spanish Moss (again, from Dollar Tree)...

Then I poured in 2 bags of mini skeletons (yup, you guessed it... from Dollar Tree!)

Then I placed it on the dining room table with my Dollar Tree Hurricanes (see post here) and added a cute {?} black crow (yes, yes, yes, it was from the Dollar Tree).

And... TADAAA!

Not counting the table runner or those teeny tiny pumpkins, everything seen in this display only cost $9 total!! (Actually, even less than that since I didn't use all of the spanish moss). 

OK, so... not TOO scary and not really gory but... not ~cutesy wootsey~ either. A nice compromise if I do say so myself! :)

I'm linking this up to:

While He Was Napping