First of all, Happy October Guys!! I can’t believe all things spooky, Halloweenie, and fall is finally upon us and I could not be more excited. Halloween has always been tied as one of my favorite holidays with Christmas, but there is just something different about Halloween for me. Halloween has a way less materialistic, commercial feel to me but has such a killer theme (haha get it) and awesome activities to pair. Every year we do a lot of October festivities, food, costumes, outings, and movies to celebrate this wonderful month. One tradition we always like to participate in is creating spooky baskets to give away. We enjoy this tradition so much that we decided to continue to partner with Succulent Bella for our first ever giveaway and do a Spooky Basket with one of her amazing plants as our center piece. After putting the basket together I thought other people might be wondering how to put together these wonderful gifts, and with a little tweaking you can make baskets for Christmas, birthdays, or anniversary gifts. So without further ado if your interested in making one of these lovely creations continue on.

Base 

With this project you first must start with a strong base that can hold a large amount of items and looks somewhat like your theme, which usually is a basket. However there are a multitude of different objects you can use for a base, for example we started with a cauldron, but you can use a bowl, sack, or a vase. When looking at your base it is important to look at how deep the object is and if there is too much space you should pick up filler items to help hold your gifts at the surface. The cauldron was pretty tall so I found styrofoam blocks, covered them in colored tissue paper, and stuffed the base to my liking before I started filling the basket. To fill your base you can use styrofoam,  tissue paper, spider webs, small boxes, or bubble wrap. 

Gifts 

Gifts is by far the best part of the project and we had a lot of fun shopping and finding the perfect items for our basket. When I start to plan the basket out I like to focus on finding a few key items then filling in the rest with smaller items. Starting off I knew my main gift item would be the gorgeous arrangement that Succulent Bella put together. But some ideas you can use  for your main gift can include a piece of clothing, shoes, a book, new piece of technology, or a special item that your specific person has been wanting. When I go shopping for the rest of the items I try to go to a few different stores to try and find the best pieces for the best prices. I usually start at the 99 cent store to find small items, candy (like Reese’s pumpkins, nerd ropes, and spider gummy candy), tissue paper, and spider webs. Then I will bounce around to Walmart, Target, Rite-Aid, and Trader Joe’s to find items that I can fill the rest of the basket with. Some of the items I picked, that you can customize to your own persons favorites, include a candle, stickers, small decorations with lights, fall scented air freshener, a Halloween face mask, a mini cinnamon broom, and a tumbler. My favorite items to include usually are cozy items like fuzzy socks, blankets, or sweaters but unfortunately this year I could not find any of these items with the Halloween theme, but these are items that are fan favorites in our baskets. Some other items you can put in your baskets can include pictures, letters, jewelry, makeup or toiletries, their favorite scent, car items, pens, a bottle of alcohol, under garments, or a board game. 

Putting It All Together 

Alright, it’s finally time to put it all together!! Looking at your ready to go base it’s time to mentally start planning out how to put your creation together. I first start with positioning the main piece in the center then I start putting the other large items around the center piece. This is to ensure the most important pieces make it inside of the basket. Because I usually over shop and have to leave a few pieces out, I ensure the best pieces go in first. After putting the candle, tumbler, mask, and stickers in I start to fluff the basket out with the candy and Halloween decorations, making sure any lights are visible. After tweaking and putting your favorite pieces into the basket to your perfection, I try to add a few small additional touches. I covered the basket with light spider webs and then put small spiders over the webs. My last touch is wrapping a Halloween themed ribbon around the cauldron to add a last touch of personalization and color. 

And there you have it! Your own awesome, personalized, and thoughtful gift that you can give to your loved one. I really love this gift because you can make this gift with ten dollars to a thousand dollars, but people really enjoy this gift because it takes some thought and effort and it makes your someone special feel really important. I love filling a basket with my loved ones favorite small objects and watching their faces light up with excitement. One of my favorite parts of being a Twenty-Something year old is creating my own traditions, celebrating the holidays, and finding ways I can cherish and give to my loved ones. I am really excited to give our awesome Halloween Spooky Basket to one of our supporters so please go on over to our Instagram to find out the details of how to win our basket in the giveaway! I hope you have a fabulous time putting your own basket together and let us know if you have any questions in making your own masterpiece. Enjoy your October, partake in some fun festivities with your loved ones, and I will see you in my next blog. 

Cheers to our Twenty-Somethings.

Rayna