Much to my hometown friend’s shock (I’m from Long Branch), I choose to live on campus here at Monmouth. Though I wouldn’t change anything about the life I’ve built in the dorms, the plain white walls can be a bit daunting at first.
It’s for this exact reason that I take every opportunity to decorate my dorm room, holidays and all.
My basic decorations that I have up year round consist of fairy lights, hand painted canvas signs from over the years, my lucky bamboo plant (appropriately named Rocky Bamboo-a), and a neon sign which includes interchangeable letters that can be used to form any phrase of your choosing.
I also have a dry erase calendar that I have displayed on my desk. While I love how cozy I’ve managed to make my once empty dorm room, the interior design addict in me always finds any excuse to switch out decorations in accordance to holidays. Lucky for me, October presents the prefect opportunity.
I could easily decide to decorate for Halloween with hanging bats and fake blood. However, truth be told, I’m a complete chicken and not the biggest Halloween fanatic. So I end up just decorating for the overall season of Fall. It’s cute, easy and ultimately saves me money when I can easily reuse the same theme for the Halloween and Thanksgiving months. Realistically, as much as I adore the opportunity to decorate, my wallet won’t allow it.
As a fan of do it yourself (DIY) projects, I typically make a lot of my decorations. Pinterest is my best friend, though I’m sure anyone who walks into my dorm on a daily basis could guess that based off of the gallery wall of canvases that I’ve made myself and the meticulously crafted glitter key holder I have by my door.
For the purpose of Fall, I’ve made a candy corn themed flower vase out of a mason jar, a little scarecrow out of mini flower pots and letters that spell out FALL with wooden blocks and fake leaves. If I’m truly being honest with myself, I just use the DIY decorations as an excuse for me to browse aimlessly around Michael’s for an hour. No shame.
What I can’t make out of craft supplies, I buy. I switch out my rose fairy lights for leaf fairy lights along with a layered leaf garland with vibrant oranges and reds. I recently changed my neon sign so it displays a Halloween inspired saying (I chose “Spooky Time” this year.) I even take the time to make my calendar theme reflective of Fall by using my different colored dry erase markers. I really took the time to scribble out an elegant looking October font for this month accompanied by two little pumpkins.
I guess you could say I’m a strong believer in the importance of decorating your dorm.
Whether it’s for every day decorations or ones for holidays, I make sure I go all out. You think my Fall decorations are intense? Just wait until Christmas.
And, don’t forget about all of the delicious Halloween candy that will be on sale beginning Nov. 1. I can’t wait to devour a whole bag of Snickers and Reese’s Cups. That should hold me off until Thanksgiving.
PHOTO TAKEN by Samantha Rivas
