If you can't be home to greet trick-or-treaters as Halloween, or if you just prefer to not have your doorbell ringing all night, you might consider a self-serve Halloween candy station instead. Rather than just a bowl of candy on the porch, I came up with a really cute self-serve Halloween candy station that looks great in the yard and makes it really easy for kids to find.

I started with some simple white cutlery bags which we stamped with a simple pumpkin design in black and teal. The choice of teal is because we also wanted to participate in the Teal Pumpkin Project. I'll go into that more in a few minutes.

With the bags all set, I moved on to make a booth on which to display them in the yard. I started with two bushel baskets that I spray painted with a bright teal color from Rust-Oleum.

While the baskets dried, I worked on the sign for the top of the station. I started with a big piece of cardboard packaging that I had saved from a recent delivery, and painted it white. Then I hand-painted "Trick or Treat" across it using blue and teal craft paint.

When the baskets were dry, I weighed them down with some bricks and then filled them with black and white balloons. In the middle of each basket, I placed a long cardboard tube (painted white) that I had in my junk pile. (A piece of 1x2 lumber would have worked well, too.)

I wanted to hang the treats, so I needed to create some lines that hung between the two poles. To anchor them, I started by drilling two holes in each of the tubes, spaced where the lines would be.

I screwed in some small cup hooks into the holes, then tied yarn to them, stretching it across the frame to create two lines for hanging the treats.

Finally time to fill those treat bags with goodies! The bags with black pumpkins got traditional Halloween candies.

To participate in the Teal Pumpkin Project, I stuffed the teal bags with non-edible toys/gifts. The Teal Pumpkin Project makes it so easy for kids with allergies to safely trick-or-treat, because they know they can take any treats marked with teal pumpkins, without worrying about getting candy they might be allergic to.

When it was nearing time for trick-or-treaters to arrive, I clipped the bags to the strings with some clothespins that I had spray-painted in black and teal to match the bags. The clothespins made it easy for kids to take a bag and easy for me to refill the station with more bags as needed.

The last step was to add the sign across the top, which I secured with some simple duct tape on the back. I just love how it all came together to create an adorable self-serve candy station for Halloween.

I made sure to have a bunch of extra treat bags filled and ready so I could replenish the trick-or-treat station throughout Halloween night. All the little ghosts and goblins loved to help themselves and several parents even took a moment to thank me for my Team Pumpkin Project efforts.