If you saw my post yesterday about my colorful Halloween party, then you know that I decided to style two completely different Halloween parties. Yesterday it was all about a colorful bash full of tropical flowers and pumpkins, but today’s party is a little darker and more sophisticated. The inspiration for today’s soiree began with a simple bunch of dark red flowers from the grocery store. Then with the addition of a few backyard greenery clippings, copper accents, and large scale paper flowers, the party was styled and ready.

Such a different look than yesterday, isn’t it? Follow along below for more photos and a few DIY projects that helped pull the whole party together.

As I mentioned, for this party I began with the flower arrangement and worked my way out from there. I will be the first to admit that I am not skilled in the art of flower arranging. I get so overwhelmed with the flower options at my local flower shop (and the price to be honest) that I usually leave empty handed. But this arrangement seemed to come together to easily due to one little thing. Backyard scavenging! I went with a $4 bunch of dark red flowers from the grocery store and then came home and pilfered my backyard for any greenery I could find. I ended up cutting a few pieces of flowering stems from native shrubs, some soft suede like greens from another plant, and then a long tendril of trailing succulent from my succulent garden. I used a similar arrangement for both the table centerpiece and the bar cart.

Another way that I brought flowers into the space were with these black shimmery paper flowers that I made for the Consumer Crafts blog. You can get all the DIY details here. Aren’t they just amazing on the wall behind the bar cart? I kind of want to keep these up all year long!

The last DIY that I made for this dark and sophisticated Halloween party are these copper skull drink stirrers. To make I simply used these plastic skull heads and a copper paint pen to paint them copper. Then I used a wooden skewer to pierce them through the hole in the bottom. Possibly a little morbid for some, but I love the look of these copper skulls!

The rest of the table was filled out with white and gold plates from At Home stores, gold flatware from West Elm, black candles from World Market, Gold Skull salt and pepper shakers from Home Goods, and black and white pumpkins from Target. Oh, and you may notice the black spider web coaster DIY that I re-purposed as plate decorations.

And the bar cart was filled with bottles of wine and champagne, another marbled pumpkin from Target and the most amazing copper skull candy dish from Home Goods.

So now that you have seen the details of both parties, tell me, which one do you like best. Colorful and bright or dark and sophisticated?