Haunted Midas Mansion DIY Halloween Mantel Decor

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Y’all. I love to decorate for Halloween. I say it every year. I dreamed up a haunted Midas mansion for my DIY Halloween mantel decor this year and it was SO MUCH FUN to create! You know the midas touch – everything turns to gold!? Well here at our house that is rarely true, but for Halloween we are going all out on the gold decor and you are going to love some of these budget friendly Halloween decor ideas!

A theme always gets my creative juices flowing and honestly, until the Midas idea hit me in the middle of the night I wasn’t to jazzed about decorating for Halloween this year. And yes, you read that right. I think of random stuff like Halloween decor ideas in the middle of the night. It’s dumb. LOL! But – it got me motivated, so that’s a good thing.

Most of the other Halloween decorations were left over from years past and only required a little gold spray paint to bring them up to speed. Always use what you have and make it work for you!

Can we talk about this “wallpaper” for a minute? I always want a backdrop on my mantel because there are two ugly plugs up there I like to cover. This Halloween I devised a faux wallpaper situation by stenciling a gorgeous damask onto brown craft paper (or wrapping paper). It was all about quick and easy decor for this part. I didn’t line up the stencils, or even fill them in all the way. I rolled some parts darker than others and made it completely imperfect. QUICK TIP – I do love to use a small roller sponge brush for applications like this, it works really well and super quick.

I had an old frame and portrait in my stash. I bought it for $5 at a thrift store and only bought it for the frame, but hadn’t ditched the picture yet. I thought she made the perfect mistress of the Midas mansion! I blacked out her eyes for that creepy “someone is watching from behind the painting” feel in silly horror movies.

I say this all the time about holiday decor, but it is great to have a good supply of non-descript, non-holiday items you can use over and over in a variety of decoration situations! Candlesticks, books, boxes, trays, frames, etc. They are perfect to mix into any holiday decor and make it feel curated versus store bought! If you invest in some good basics then mixing in cheap dollar store and Walmart finds is easy and let’s you still have an elegant feel to your style.

You can see how to make the gold bug displays here.

Cheap dollar store flowers look great in a Midas touch gold vase. I used a vase I had leftover from my fall tablescape. It was $1 at a thrift store. These cheap glass vases paint and transform so easily!

Bleeding candles from Walmart perch on top of gold painted wine bottles. I’ll recycle them after Halloween!

The little and big skulls are also from Walmart, painted gold of course. Prop your spooky displays up on glass candlesticks or some kind of vintage feeling vase to add a charming touch.

The owls are from the 99 Cent only store – one of my very favorite dollar stores! You can see a complete haunted farmhouse Halloween decor scheme I did a while back from the 99 Cent Only Store here.

All my thrift store candlesticks lined up to be Halloween decorations as well. Candles are on my list of craft items I never pass up in thrift stores, you can see the whole list here.

It’s fun to have a large collection of items to display! The sheer number of candlesticks is what makes this Halloween coffee table decor fun.

I hope you enjoyed perusing the Midas Mansion mantel! Come back tomorrow to see the Midas tablescape! It’s a cute one full of dollar store items. Have fun crafting a themed Halloween decor style you can go crazy with!

See Halloween tables here

See a fun project and vignette here