21 Oct How to Turn Tacky Halloween Masks into Geeky but Classy Fall Wall Decor | The Nightmare Before Christmas

Okay, so about the title – I’m sorry – I didn’t mean it. After all, the Nightmare Before Christmas isn’t tacky in the least. It’s quirky, at best. And we love it in this house. So for the sake of not offending anyone who loves those masks in their original forms, let’s talk about how to turn ‘quirky’ Halloween masks into fun and geeky fall wall decor.

Better? Good!

Masks as Wall Decor

“Greetings, fellow humans, human fellas! (Rayla, the Dragon Prince)”

It’s been a while and I will definitely address the elephant in the mask – I mean room. But first – masks. In rooms. On walls.

Wow, it’s been awhile…

So I loosely follow interior design trend blogs so I know what’s going on for the year in home decor. This is mainly because as an artist, I need to know what’s trending so I can design fabric and products that will sell (more on this life update later, I promise). Although this year is just a spit’s second away from over —

–that’s gross. I don’t why I typed that —

Ahem… although we are pretty close to the end of the year, most trends will last more than a year. Some even live on for a few years. Also, as I have and will always emphasize, you can decorate your home how you want because it’s your home. You will find that trend reports differ slightly for the audience of that post or blog. For example, country design style trends will differ slightly from industrial design style trends. Or modern. Or traditional. Never geeky – you just won’t find much out there for those of us who have a more nerdy fandom design style. So I always take these trends with a grain of salt and incorporate the things we love into our decor.

Interior Trends for (Fall) 2024

I prefer to take (very loose) advice from Spruce and Living Spaces. To be honest, Spruce wasn’t as helpful this year; but that’s debatable. I could probably just admit that I simply didn’t care for the short list of fall trends they published. But it’s all about personal style and perspective, is it not? Here’s the synopsis from both (oddly similar to last year’s list, in my opinion):

Cozy is the fall buzz word this year. It’s a word I quite love for gaming purposes! Nordic style, aka minimal, seems to be popular, as well as textural elements like velvet, chunky knits, and plush cozy things. Fall florals are always in style because, well, fall. But lean in to the natural elements that include fall leaves and mini pumpkins. Pumpkins are a requirement in our home, and every year the big decision isn’t whether or not to decorate with them – it’s whether we want to run to Michael’s to buy more (not affiliated, just a favorite). Metals and patina are in, and that gives way to the once-again-popular industrial-chic-design-style. Candles, statement piece table settings, and patterns, along with darker shades and neutrals, are just basically a summary of fall decor. But orange and grey along with distressed objects are the winners for 2024.

In focusing on metal arts and prints, as well as the overall 2024 trend for biophilic design, Our dining room wall finally came together. And it’s interchangeable for the seasons!

First, what is biophilic design?

Biophilic interior design is basically bringing nature into the home, like plants, natural elements, and natural light. Surprisingly enough, wooden decorative masks are part of this trend.

Decorative masks as wall decor can be incorporated into industrial, modern, and art deco styled interiors. Even busts and statues can fit into either of the design styles. It all depends on how they’re displayed. With our industrial-geek-chic home decor style (say that three times fast!) comes the infusion of natural elements like wood, metals, stone, etc. – I chose a metallic finish. And since we lean towards the geeky in our home, as well, the masks couldn’t be just any masks. They had to match our aesthetic – our penchant for superheroes, to be exact.

Invasion of the Masks

On a related note (I promise this will make sense in a minute or two lol), I recently discovered that even if I don’t really care for a TV series, as a fan I will always take something positive away from it. Because we don’t do toxic fandoms in this home!

Here’s looking at you, Star Wars (weeps for the fandom).

We watched Secret Invasion. This is not a review, and all I will say is that even though it wasn’t my favorite MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) TV series, there are definitely some really good parts. Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson) has a home that is just lovely in it’s simplicity. I loved seeing that side of Fury and was inspired to use one of the ideas in particular for our home.

In what looked to be his entryway or hallway was a table with assorted vases and a bowl; and on the wall above the table was a collection of masks. These masks aren’t what you would normally think of when you think of masks as wall decor – they were white just like the wall. They didn’t jump out at you as you entered the home – instead, if you didn’t pay attention, you could likely miss them the first time they appeared on screen. It really was brilliant in it’s simplicity.

Secret Invasion

Without spoiling too much, the Secret Invasion was a television miniseries that aired on Disney+ in 2023, and was based on a storyline in the Marvel Comics, also called Secret Invasion, starring Fury (played by Samuel L. Jackson on TV). In the show, we find out about rebel Skrulls that have come to earth. The Skrulls are alien shapeshifters that appeared in comic books, but who were introduced to the MCU in both the Captain Marvel and Spiderman, Far From Home movies of 2019. They also appear in WandaVision and What If…?, and by the time we meet back up with them in Secret Invasion, there are more of them on earth.

I’ll be honest, if you haven’t seen it and are curious, just watch it. It isn’t as bad as they say it is online. And, as I always say, as a Marvel fan, I can find something I like in every show and movie, as well as something I don’t. But don’t let review-bombers, or self-proclaimed review-pundits who have no loyalty to the Universe tell you what to think of any show, movie, or comic. You are the only person who can make that determination for yourself.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!

In thinking about the show, the point of this design choice can be the fact that the Skrulls blend in with earth’s society. They’re here among us but you don’t know because they look like us. The masks could represent the fact that the Skrulls hid their true faces and weren’t who they seemed on the outside. The way the masks blend into the wall is the same way the Skrulls blended into our world. Maybe this wasn’t an intentional choice by Marvel, but it is how I interpreted it, and I think it’s very clever.

Or am I just a clever girl? 

While it is difficult to find many pictures online, I did discover a website called MCU Location Scout (.com) where images of the house can be seen. I also (just for the sake of this blog, of course) rewatched much of the show and can give you the episodes and times where you can see these masks in more detail:

Secret Invasion, Episode 2, 51:49-52:03 (briefly)
Secret Invasion, Episode 4, 12:48-19:23 (more detail)
Secret Invasion, Episode 5, 19:18-19:35 (briefly – also be warned there is a loud shooting scene that starts at 19:35)

So when I saw these masks, I was immediately distracted from the rest of the episode and became obsessed with the idea of masks in our home. This is how the dining room wall came together in a melding of superhero, industrial, and natural. Of course, since we can’t just walk into home interior stores and pick up non-tacky superhero accessories for our home, we get to DIY most things using already existing things. The existing masks were simply kids toy superhero masks from Amazon. We started with Spiderman, Black Panther, and Wolverine masks, and painted them with a metallic finish. That was our summer project.

One day I’ll give you all a blog-tour of our geeky home.

Fall Halloween Mask Wall Decor | the Switch-Up

To replace the superhero masks to match our Fall | Halloween decor, I decided to go with the infamous masks that Lock, Shock, and Barrel wear in The Nightmare Before Christmas. I found and ordered them from Target. Since we already have Jack, Sally, Oogie Boogie, and (now) Zero, these masks complete the collection. And as a bonus, they have a very tribal look to them. I have a post that shows you how I paint objects to look like metal – this is the same method I used here.

I will post a pictural timeline and how to of how I made the masks, if you’d like.

So once they were done, we replaced the superhero masks with Lock, Shock, and Barrel on the dining room wall. And I have to say that we are loving how they turned out along with all my plant-babies!

So that is this year’s addition to our Nightmare Before Christmas seasonal decor. I hope you like it and can take inspiration from it for your geeky holiday home decor season. I will post the DIY in another post. If you’d like to see more of our fall, holiday, and seasonal decor, let me know in the comments. I’ll be happy to do a Fall home walkthrough for you.

See you in the next post!