If you love decorating for Halloween, secondhand stores are the perfect place to shop.
One Instagram influencer shared her hack for getting festive for the spooky season without spending a fortune or contributing to landfill waste.
The scoop
Sustainable living advocate Shelby Orme (@shelbizleee) showed the world how trendy and "cute as hell" secondhand decor can be for Halloween.
In her video, she paints over a piece of thrift store artwork to create a unique Halloween decoration. The new creation she displays above her fireplace features a ghost, bats, and pumpkins in the original frame.
💡Make money recycling your old stuff
Looking for an easy way to clean out your closet and get paid for the trouble? Trashie has you covered.
Trashie's Take Back Bags cost $20 but earn you $30 in rewards, which means you're making money every time you fill one up with old clothes, shoes, linens, or bags.
The Cool Down may receive a commission on purchases made through links on this page, but we only promote partners we vet and believe in. For more cool tips like this one, check out our solutions list here.
"I LOVE seeing the trend of taking things destined for landfill and making them cute & fun becoming a trend," Shelby wrote in the caption of her viral post. "I also love the idea of playing some part in making or finding most of my decor & not just running to Target every season to replace the stuff I didn't even love last year, ya know?"
How it's helping
Shelby's Halloween decor hack is brilliant because it saves her money from buying brand-new decorations. It also allows her to tap into her creative side and design her own fun and festive decor.
Now, Shelby has an adorable conversation piece in her home that she can share with guests and reuse each Halloween season.
Meanwhile, the old piece of unwanted artwork from the thrift store didn't end up in a landfill, where it could have contributed to air pollution and groundwater contamination. When household items sit in landfills for long periods, they slowly decompose and release heat-trapping gases that contribute to our planet's overheating.
Keeping everything from artwork to wrapping paper and plastic out of landfills helps reduce toxins in our environment, resulting in cooler, more comfortable living conditions.
What people are saying
Instagrammers loved how Shelby made secondhand decor feel trendy while embracing the fall spirit.
"I just love the original-on-original double human art compared to the commercial mass-produced decor we get sold every year," one Instagram user wrote in the comments.
"Cute! I also have seen folks paint on the glass so you can scrape it off later," an Instagrammer suggested.
Another Instagrammer added, "Gotta remember to keep this energy in other seasons, too."
Join our free newsletter for easy tips to save more and waste less, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Cool Picks
