The fall breeze sweeps through the streets of Tuscaloosa as leaves start to change from summer green to golden amber. The temperature drops, sweaters come out and the smell of pumpkin spice surrounds customers as they walk through Starbucks’ doors. As the colder weather comes, fall traditions like decorating for Halloween come as well. With seven steps, students can make their apartment feel like home for the holiday.

1. Find a trick-or-treating basket, and fill it with a mix of your favorite candy. This can be great for you and your roommates if anyone is stressed about an assignment and needs a little snack. Also, it’s never a bad idea to have some spare candy around.

2. To continue traditions while at school, grab a pumpkin from Walmart or Tuscaloosa Barnyard and have a pumpkin-carving contest. If you want to avoid the mess, you can always buy a fake pumpkin to paint instead. Then, put it on display once you’re done 
decorating the pumpkin.

3. For a cheap way to decorate your apartment, you can create a ghost out of an empty milk jug. Once you clean it out, you can use a black sharpie to create the perfect face for a ghost. If you want to add more, you can put lights or candy corn inside the container.

4. If you’re going for the haunted house look, you can head over to Spirit Halloween and grab some fake spider webs. Dress it up with fake spiders on top, and it may surprise your next guest.

5. To create a mummy door, all you need is an extra roll of toilet paper and a piece of black construction paper. First, go side to side with toilet paper and tape it down to make sure it stays. Next, cut out two circles for the eyes and tape them to the door. Easy and affordable, this will help you stay festive without having to put too much work into it.

6. Glue magnets to the back of 
plastic spiders for the fridge door or other 
areas in the apartment.

7. Buy fake flowers from Michaels in fall colors and fill the extra room in vases with candy corn.

8. Paint Mason jars orange, then draw faces on them once they dry to make them look like jack-o’-lantern. Also, you can add an electric candle in the 
Mason jar to have them glow when 
you want.

9. Create bats out of black construction paper, then tape them around the apartment walls.

10. Create a spider with just two items. First blow up a black balloon and draw two eyes on the balloon. Then tape black streamers to the balloon to look like the legs. Once these steps are done you can hang the spider from the ceiling or leave it in the corner of 
the room.

Once all your decorations are complete, settle in with some Halloween movies, and don’t forget to say, “trick-or-treat.”