Day of the Dead Trunk-or-Treat Ideas

This post is spon­sored by Ori­en­tal Trad­ing Com­pa­ny, but as always, all ideas and opin­ions are my own!

Octo­ber is FINALLY here, which means it’s Hal­loween time and the first project of the sea­son is a Day of the Dead trunk-or-treat! We start­ed par­tic­i­pat­ing in the rather new trunk-or-treat tra­di­tion a few years ago when my daugh­ter’s school decid­ed to put on the event for the stu­dents. The very first set-up I did was inspired by the clas­sic It’s the Great Pump­kin, Char­lie Brown and it has been incred­i­bly pop­u­lar! Since then, I did Night­mare Before Christ­mas and Mick­ey Hal­loween trunks, so I real­ly want­ed to focus on a dif­fer­ent theme this time around.

I was super excit­ed to part­ner with Ori­en­tal Trad­ing Com­pa­ny on our trunk-or-treat decor this year. As I was brows­ing through their large array of Hal­loween decor and cos­tumes, I came upon the col­or­ful Day of the Dead sec­tion, which imme­di­ate­ly inspired me! The Dia de los Muer­tos Mex­i­can cus­tom remem­bers and hon­ors loved ones who have been lost with beau­ti­ful vibrant flow­ers and dec­o­ra­tions and the high­ly rec­og­niz­able sug­ar skulls. I could­n’t wait to incor­po­rate it into this sea­son’s motif!

To begin, I usu­al­ly deter­mine what will be the most impact­ful to con­vey the theme that will also give me the biggest bang for my buck! I start­ed off with a Day of the Dead cutout ban­ner to string across as a back­drop. Whether you are dec­o­rat­ing an SUV or sedan, I can attest that this ban­ner will cov­er the entire­ty of the back­ground and you will have plen­ty to spare to uti­lize for a par­ty! I also lined the bot­tom with black tulle to add some inter­est and hide more of the car.

One of the most essen­tial parts of a Day of the Dead trunk-or-treat is the incor­po­ra­tion of sug­ar skulls! I found this DIY ceram­ic skull that would be per­fect for the theme and also allow me to dec­o­rate it exact­ly how I want­ed. I start­ed off by draw­ing the design in pen­cil on the skull, then used black and var­i­ous col­ors of vibrant paint to fill in your design. For the out­lines and the teeth, I opt­ed for a per­ma­nent mark­er, then added some bling with adhe­sive gems. To fin­ish it off, I made flow­ers with crepe paper by twist­ing and form­ing them, pinch­ing the bot­tom for the stem and secur­ing it with tape. I dis­played the sug­ar skull on a tiered stand and added can­dy to it.

When I saw this Day of the Dead skull wall dec­o­ra­tion, I thought it would be a great addi­tion to the decor! I love the design and it’s a sub­stan­tial wood sign that would­n’t pose any dif­fi­cul­ty to hold it up, as opposed to card­board. And it has glit­ter details! In my trunk set-ups, I tend to lean towards larg­er items that are eas­i­ly vis­i­ble to trunk-or-treaters and will take up room and the sign cer­tain­ly did the trick!

Anoth­er poignant piece in any Dia de los Muer­tos dis­play is the tomb­stone since it is a cel­e­bra­tion of the dear­ly depart­ed. This Day of the Dead tomb­stone was a great addi­tion that again, helped to cre­ate a big impact on the set-up. I also liked that it was taller than the sug­ar skull sign, cre­at­ing vary­ing heights through­out the trunk.

In all of the trunk-or-treat lay­outs I’ve done, I always incor­po­rate a ban­ner on the top of the open trunk lid. Some­times the ban­ners spell out words or in oth­er cas­es, such as this one, it’s sim­ply added dec­o­ra­tion. I was so hap­py with this Day of the Dead lay­ered felt gar­land, as it worked per­fect­ly to add dimen­sion and was just stinkin’ cute!

On some addi­tion­al tiered stands, I added this vin­tage Day of the Dead skele­ton stat­ue with which I fell in love as soon as I saw it to com­ple­ment the ceram­ic sug­ar skull in the cen­ter. I tend to pick a few extra spe­cial pieces, then add the sup­ple­men­tary decor that isn’t as cost­ly to bal­ance it out since it can be dif­fi­cult to fill up the space, espe­cial­ly if you have a big trunk!

Doing make-up for sug­ar skull cos­tume can be extreme­ly dif­fi­cult and time-con­sum­ing, as I have expe­ri­enced in the past when I did my daugh­ter’s for our Day of the Dead par­ty a cou­ple of years back! I was a bit ner­vous about hav­ing to do it again because our school’s trunk-or-treat event is actu­al­ly ON Hal­loween this year and I did­n’t want to have to wor­ry about get­ting it off for our fes­tiv­i­ties lat­er in the evening. The solu­tion? These Day of the Dead sug­ar skull pho­to props! Not only could they be used for pho­to opps and hand­ing out can­dy, but they made per­fect addi­tions to the decor! To make them stand up, I insert­ed them into long can­dles and spread them around through­out the trunk. To add some dif­fer­ent heights, I used some wood­en crates {paint­ed dark so they would­n’t be notice­able} and placed the can­dles on them.

To fin­ish off the Day of the Dead trunk-or-treat, I inte­grat­ed a bunch of tis­sue paper flow­ers in var­i­ous sizes and col­ors to fill up the emp­ty spaces. I made the flow­ers myself by fold­ing tis­sue paper accor­dion style, fold­ing and secur­ing it at the cen­ter, trim­ming the ends, then pulling the petals apart. But to save time, you can eas­i­ly by them ready-made, like these pret­ty fies­ta flower tis­sue cen­ter­pieces!

I just love how the entire Day of the Dead trunk-or-treat turned out! Not only does the theme have mean­ing and tra­di­tion, but the decor itself is vibrant and cel­e­bra­to­ry and def­i­nite­ly an eye catcher!

And if you are sup­ple­ment­ing your cel­e­bra­tion with a par­ty, don’t for­get to check out the Dia de los Muer­tos par­ty for addi­tion­al ideas, as well as my sug­ar skull fon­dant top­per tuto­r­i­al!

 

Merci Beaucoup!

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