Knock Off Pottery Barn Halloween Display

I've held onto this image from an old Pottery Barn catalog for a couple years now:

I love the spooky look...the black urn, barren branches, black crows and old book pages.  Do you recognize the Boo Rug from this post?  I decided almost immediately upon viewing this page that  I wanted to recreate the overall look, but I needed a black urn.  A black urn that I didn't want to pay Pottery Barn prices for.  I didn't want to even pay Home Depot prices for it, so I waited and waited.  Then early last month, Home Depot cleared out many of their planters including this one:

Originally $89.99, it was on clearance for $29.  Yeah to the hey!!  It's taller than the Pottery Barn urn and just looks nicer in my opinion.

I had put sticks aside for this project last year.  I grabbed them from my parents old house right before they sold it last fall.  The sticks have sat in the garage for over a year, and I've had to defend my need for them on many occasions to avoid having them land in our fire pit.  I've decorated using faux black crows and faux white pumpkins from Michael's for the past couple years, so I already had several of those on hand.  Finally, I used pages from an old Goodwill book and fishing line to hang the pages from the branches.  I tried to hunt down an old 'witchcraft' book with images, but that proved difficult.

Here is my front porch look now:

It's hard to see the dark crows against the color of our siding, but I still love it! 

My porch is covered, so as long as there is no major precipitation I'm in good shape leaving it as is for a couple days.  However, if I wanted to make it more weather proof, I'd need to laminate the book pages and perhaps invest in some indoor/outdoor birds or be okay with a poly'd bird look:).  As for now, this works just fine.

Cost Breakdown:
Urn: $29 (I also bought a second one in case I decide to do 2 on either side of the door...I like planters in pairs)
Sticks: FREE
Faux Pumpkins and Crows: FREE (already owned, but they have crows at the Dollar Tree and the Faux Pumpkins at Michael's.)
Book: $0.15 from Goodwill Clearance Book Bin
Rug: $8

Total for Look: Under $40, although it would be closer to $55 if I count the original cost of  black crows and faux pumpkins.

Maybe next year, I'll add the scroll, bench and lanterns from the original inspiration image to our overall Halloween front porch look:).  As for now, I love our porch decor!  And if you couldn't tell already, we love Halloween around here.  I'll actually be back this afternoon with a post about our pumpkin decorating adventures.

Linking up to Finding Fabulous!