Haunted Shipwreck Halloween Pirate Mantel

Shiver me timbers! I’ll show you easy it is to set up a Haunted Shipwreck Pirate Mantel for yourself. Even a landlubber like yourself can do it!

Shipwrecked Pirate Skeleton

First, I started with a pirate skeleton, who comes complete with a hook, peg leg, eyepatch, and striped bandana.

To make him look even more like a pirate, I added a pirate hat and the perfect white ruffled pirate shirt.

I also draped a few pearl necklaces over his hook, since a pirate can’t be without his treasure for long, even in death!

Did you notice his skull flask, filled with his favorite rum? I made this a few years ago to go with my daughter’s Halloween pirate costume. It was stacked on top of some tropical leaves, along with some gold coins.

Amazing Treasure Chest Makeover

Our incredible pirate chest is definitely my favorite part of our Halloween pirate mantel!

I started with a plain plastic treasure chest that came in shiny plastic gray and yellow colors. I loved the shape, but it just didn’t look realistic enough for my mantel, since I wanted the scene to look old, like it had been sitting there for a while.

I shared how to make a DIY treasure chest on my website, where you can see the entire tutorial step-by-step, as well as a tutorial video. The chest was transformed into an old weathered treasure chest filled with pirate booty that was worthy of an old pirate captain!

After some sandpaper, some paint, and a lot of treasure, she was ready for my pirate mantel!

To add some extra cool details, I cut a plastic skull in half, painted it gold, then glued it onto the front of the chest.

Adhesive rhinestones added more texture and detail after they were painted gold and glued to the gold strips on the front of the chest.

Our treasure chest was filled with hundreds of gold coins (that I glued onto a piece of fabric), rhinestone rings, and pearl necklaces.

I even hot glued stacks and piles of gold coins to each other and placed the stacks in front of the pirate chest.

A pirate sword, a skeleton parrot, spiral sea shells, tropical leaves, and velvet pirate treasure bags filled with loot made our treasure chest look even more authentic!

Mystical Mermaid Skeleton

Our lovely skeleton mermaid filled our fireplace mantel beautifully!

She had long flowing blonde hair (a wig), along with two tropical leaves across her chest.

White creepy cloth, complete with lots of holes, along with some fish nets, were draped across the mantel and the rest of the fireplace. I added some starfish into the nets and cloth to look like it was pulled straight out of the sea.

A pirate flag hung next to our mermaid with the pirate skull and crossbones. 

A wood sign warning “pirates ahead” was made by rubbing some brown paint into wood slats that were glued together with a glue gun and reinforced with more wood slats on the back.

An unfortunate skull was conveniently placed in front of the pirate warning sign, along with some scallop shells, spiral sea shells, and coconut halves filled with more gold coins.

More Pirate Details

To make my pirate fireplace mantel look like it truly was a pirate shipwreck scene, I added a vintage wood crate to the left of my pirate treasure chest.

An old vintage-style lantern, a pirate treasure bag, a pirate treasure map, a pirate sword, a message in a bottle with a message inside, coins, rings, and necklaces all looked right at home in our shipwreck scene.

Tropical leaves were places inside a large bottle behind the crate to make it look even more like a deserted tropical island.

I hope you enjoyed our Haunted Shipwreck Halloween Pirate Mantel as much as I enjoyed putting it all together! This is definitely a FUN and unique way to decorate for Halloween and to impress all your landlubber friends!

Be sure to check out our DIY treasure chest tutorial to make your own realistic treasure chest!