84 Easy DIY Halloween Decorations For A Ghoulishly Spooky House
Boo it yourself fun!
Evgeny Atamanenko / Shutterstock Who wants all the fuss and expense of store-bought Halloween decor? DIY Halloween decorations can look just as good and barely cost a thing. Plus, they’re also really fun to make at home and can be added to your list of fun activities to do this fall.
Since we’re all at home this year anyway, it’s time to rediscover our inner artist with these simple, quick Halloween decorations.
Whether you’ve got a whole art supply closet bursting with pipe cleaners and paints, or just have glue and recyclable trash, there’s something on this list for everyone.
We’ve got decorations for inside and outside, for those who want a scare, those who prefer to keep it cute, for people willing to go all out, those working with a tight budget, and even crafts to get the kids involved!
DIY Halloween Decorations For Outside
1. Floating Hats
Tie up decorative black witch hats with thin, clear string and hang them from your porch for a floating effect.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
2. Candy Slide
I love this creative idea for no contact trick-or-treating! Pick up pipes from a hardware store, spray paint them orange, and attach them into place in a shape that suits your home.
3. Wicked Witch Legs
Put witchy striped tights on two foam tubes and add pointed heels. Place these upsides down in a treat bucket or line them up with the side of your house so the witch is trapped under your home, just like in The Wizard Of Oz.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
4. Skeleton Garden Party
Set up boney friends on lawn chairs to watch over your neighborhood.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
5. Skeleton Intruders
Or, have the skeleton crawl up your walls and hang out on your roof like a terrifying mob of undead!
6. Halloween Sign
If you’ve got a spare plank of wood laying around, paint over it with a Halloween design or saying of your choice. This could also be a good time to let potential trick or treaters know whether or not you're accepting visitors, or what COVID restrictions you’re implementing.
7. Trashy Pumpkins
This will motivate you to rake up the leaves. Fill colored trash bags and stick on spooky faces.
8. Serpent Door Mat
Attach fake toy or cardboard cutouts of snakes to your doormat to really welcome any potential intruders.
9. Tattered Curtains
Tear up strips of black fabric and hang them from your porch awning or around your windows. This looks terrifying when blowing in the wind, but you can also keep this decoration inside, too.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
10. Warning Signs
Use old bed sheets, fabric, or tear up clear trash bags. Paint frantic messages warning passersby of all the horrors you can think of. The messier, the better.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
11. Mask Wreath
Since we won’t be going to multiple Halloween parties and events this year, put those extra masks to some use:
1. Fashion a circular shape out of a foam tube or chicken wire.
2. Drape a decorative mesh fabric over it, stapling or taping it into place on the circle.
3. Pin your masks to the fabric in a layout of your choice.
Visit Pinterest for inspiration
12. Pumpkin Candy Holder
Stuff your carved pumpkin with Halloween candies for no contact trick or treating.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
13. Candy Wreath
Glue Halloween candies together in a circle and hang from your door using wire and a screw.
14. Wooden Cemetery
Build your own creepy cemetery using wood pallets. Paint on fake names and dates to really haunt your garden.
15. Zombie Pit
Add this grave for the undead into your cemetery:
1. Create a wooden frame using planks or a premade flower box.
2. Cover the frame with a black tarp.
3. Cut holes in the tarp and plant zombie hands in the ground.
4. Cover with more planks of wood and fake blood.
16. Frankenstein Door Decor
Cut up white cards to make eyes, teeth, and bandages for your Frankenstein.
17. Haunted Herb Garden
Repurpose your empty soda bottles and plastic containers to make quirky planters for your herbs and flowers. These look adorable propped on a window sill and also serve a functional purpose by providing fresh, homegrown herbs.
18. Creepy Columns
This scary DIY project uses empty shoe boxes, cereal boxes and cardboard to make eerie columns.
Wrap the boxes in trash bags or plastic, stack them together and spray paint them black with white, foggy spatters. Then, glue real moss to give them an aged look.
19. Eyeball Wreath
Any Christmas wreath can be revamped to make a terrifying Halloween door decoration. This DIY uses polyurethane foam that hardens as the base to cover the wreath:
1. After forming the foam wreath, place the plastic eyes into the foam before it hardens to hold them in place.
2. Paint the wreath with various shades of red. You can slice into the foam and add darker red paint here to give the illusion of open wounds.
DIY Halloween Decorations For Inside
20. Bloody Curtains
Dip your hands in red paint or fabric dye and smear it on white fabric to hang from your windows. Add extra splatters of blood where you see fit.
21. Smokey Cauldron
Pour dry ice into a cast iron pot or Dutch oven to give it a mysterious foggy effect. Dry ice is relatively inexpensive and available in most grocery stores.
22. Spider Balloons
This decoration is simple and cute:
1. Half blow up one black balloon, and fully blow up another to make the spider's body.
2. Tie these two together and make spider legs using either a tube balloon or strips of black paper.
23. Bat Banner
1. Trace out at least 10 bat shapes onto black paper using white chalk. Cut out your bats.
2. Wire black string through black pegs to make a garland. Hang each bat from a peg.
24. Pumpkin Lights
1. Start by placing pins in a large circular shape on your wall. Don’t forget to add in a stalk. These will be used to hold up the lights.
2. Using a long string of orange fairy lights, loop the lights once around the circle, ignoring the stalk.
3. As you wrap the lights around again, create long U-shaped loops down the center of the circle to make the ridges and stalk of the pumpkin.
25. Skeleton Bathtub
This is a funny addition to your bathroom for Halloween. Fill a small basin with torn up cotton balls and clear baubles, and then let your skeleton toy go for a dip.
Visit Pinterest for inspiration
26. Wine Glass Candles
Paint up wine glasses in a Halloween design of your choice, or wrap in gauze to mummify them. Once dry, you can turn them upside down and place tea lights on the base. These are also great for as a centerpiece for a haunted Halloween meal.
27. Jack-O-Vase
These jack-o-lanterns are available from Walmart for less than a dollar. Spray paint them with metallic enamel coating paint and drip black paint all over them to create a gothic flower vase.
28. Wire Wall Decorations
If you have moldable wire in your tool kit, you can easily bend and shape it into shape to emulate one of these Halloween designs.
29. Witch Table Legs
Put striped tights and a heeled leather boot on your table legs so the Wicked Witch of yhe West can come to your Halloween dinner.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
30. Bloodstained Soap
Melt a bar of red soap or add red dye to a bar of melted white soap. Then, drizzle the melted droplets over a solid bar of white soap.
31. Candlestick Candy Jars
Halloween candies deserve a spooky display. Paint tall candlestick holders black and glue a glass candy jar to the holder. Top it off with a festive bow and Halloween candies and you’re done.
Visit Pinterest for inspiration
Scary DIY Halloween Decorations
32. Creepy Cushion
Create the illusion of a poltergeist trapped in your couch cushions! Fill a glove with uncooked rice and securely tie the end shut so none seeps out. Then, tape the glove to the inside lining of your cushions.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
33. Skeleton Jail
1. Get a skeleton decoration and two black laundry baskets (or laundry baskets of any color and black spray paint).
2. Hang the skeleton from the bottom of one of the baskets and use the other basket to enclose and trap him.
34. Bat Eye Lights
Customize your Halloween fairy lights to give a creepy effect mimicking bat eyes that glow in the dark.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
35. Dolls Head Candles
Have old toys lying around? You can easily replicate this terrifying candle holder by painting the dolls ghostly white and cutting a hole in their heads to fit in a long candlestick.
36. Box Of Spiders
Want a trick instead of a treat? Freak out your guests by passing them this box.
1. Place fake spiders inside an empty shoebox or cardboard box.
2. Create a spiderweb on top of the box using white yarn.
37. Eye Roses
Ever feel like someone is watching you? Attach a creepy fake eye to the center of roses (real or fake) using glue or sticky tape.
38. Buried Alive
Form a human shape out of old clothes, paper, balls, a scarecrow, or whatever else you can easily mold into shape. Then, wrap trash bags and rope around the fake body to make this terrifying prop.
39. Hand Tray
You’ve got to hand it to whoever came up with this terrifying ornament. Attach plastic dolls arms to a silver platter and fill it with devilishly good snacks. Adding splatters of blood-red paint really adds to this already horrifying tray.
40. Potion Bottle
1. Make dyed water with food coloring or acrylic paint. Murky black and brown water looks best.
2. Add a layer of cotton balls to the bottom of a glass decanter. Mix in enough dyed water to let the cotton balls absorb the water.
3. Make another layer of cotton balls and repeat this process, alternating between the different colored water each time.
4. Add in any glitter or creepy decor of your choice. This video uses a skeleton toy, but you could include fake eyes or spiders.
41. Bloody Boots
This one doesn’t require much skill, but it still looks super-terrifying and might attract some suspicion from the neighbors if you leave these boots outside.
Paint red spatters on the toes, base, and heel of old white sneakers or boots. You could also add mud stains that you picked up while running from the scene of a crime.
42. Electric Chair
If you don’t have a wooden chair at home, you can copy this creepy one using wood palettes and 2x4 planks. Then, attach leather belts and top it off with a hanging metal bowl.
43. Zombie Dolls
Haunted Barbie anyone? Paint your dolls gray or green to look like haunted zombies. Tear up bandages to use as a dress.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
Cheap DIY Halloween Decorations
44. Wine Bottle Candlesticks
If you’re a wine drinker, you already have half the equipment needed for this DIY Halloween candlestick. And you even get to drink a bottle in the name of art.
This looks best on a dark glass bottle with the labels scrubbed off, but feel free to paint any bottle of your choice. Then, simply wedge a thin, red candlestick into the top of the empty bottle and light it, letting the wax drip and fall around the neck of the bottle.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
45. Fake Candles
If you’ve got little ones running around your house, here’s a low-risk alternative to the wine bottle candlesticks.
1. Glue empty toilet rolls or paper towel rolls together to make a formation of cylinders in various sizes.
2. Add a layer of glue to the top rim of each cylinder, allowing it to drip down.
3. Paint the whole structure black and add fake candles or mini lights to each cylinder.
46. Floating Candles
Instead of making a structure out of these candles, you could use clear string to handle them from your light fixtures and make them look like they’re floating.
47. Mummy Sticks
1. Use any cylindrical object you have at home, whether it’s a closed umbrella, snack container, lipstick tube, or water bottle.
2. Wrap gauze or bandages from your first aid kit around the object and pin them into place.
3. Glue googly eyes or black dots to the head as eyes.
4. For an optional creepy twist, add blotches of red food dye as blood.
48. Mummy Lantern
For an extra creepy twist, repeat this process around a mason jar with a light inside.
49. Ghost Mixing Spoons
Simply draw ghostly eyes and mouths onto any white mixing spoons or cooking utensils you own and display them in a vase. Just make sure not to do any cooking with them until you wash off the sharpie.
50. Creepy Cobwebs
Make your own spider web using white yarn, or by stretching out cotton balls or a cheesecloth.
51. Spooky Leaves
Fallen leaves are free to take home and decorate! Find a leaf that isn’t too weathered so it will withstand DIY. Paint on a ghostly design and display the leaves in plants around your home.
52. Pick Your Poison
Update your bar cart with these potion labels. All you have to do is design labels on your computer, print them out, and glue them to the front of your liquor bottles.
53. Tissue Ghosts
Drape white tissue paper over a scrunched up ball of paper and draw on a spooky face to make adorable little ghost figures that can be placed around your house.
54. Halloween Garland
Some black card, paint, string, and an egg box are all you need to copy this creative banner. Making this is a fun, simple activity with an adorable result.
55. Orange You Glad It’s Halloween
Make your own mini pumpkins by drawing a face on to clementines and placing them around your home.
56. Spellbooks
Cover stacks of books with brown paper or a potato sack and draw on mysterious titles.
57. Spider Egg Sacs
Recreate gross spider sacs by half filling a white balloon with stones or uncooked rice to stretch and weigh down the balloon. You can pin these balloons to door frames and attach mini fake spiders all over the balloon.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
Cute DIY Halloween Decorations
58. Spider Sanitizer
This simple DIY is perfect for Halloween 2020. Clean the labels off a hand sanitizer bottle and sprinkle in Halloween confetti.
59. Custom Mug
Paint a coffee mug, pot, or cookie jar black to create a blank canvas for your Halloween art. Paint on a simple phrase like “Boo!” “Beware” or “Witch’s Brew,” or go all out with a ghost design or spiderweb.
60. Painted Pumpkin
Ditch boring old pumpkin carving and paint cute custom designs on to your pumpkins instead. This looks especially adorable on mini pumpkins.
61. Pampered Pumpkins
Pumpkins need self-care, too! Paint colorful face masks on to your pumpkins and wrap a towel around their stalks.
62. Witch Silhouettes
Place either black tuille, black fabric, or black trash bags over a wooden post.
Tie around the fabric with black yarn twice, first creating a round black ball, then a long, oval ball for the body, and a frayed skirt. Finish by putting a black witch hat on the top ball.
63. Skeleton Mannequin
These wooden figures are easy to find in art supply stores. Then, simply paint or draw on a boney skeleton outline.
64. Plant Mummies
How adorable are these little planters? To recreate this, all you have to do is wrap mesh gauze around your plant pots and glue on fake eyes.
65. Milk Carton Lanterns
1. Paint your entire empty, clean milk carton black.
2. Cut the top and the backside off the milk carton, leaving an inch around each long side.
3. From cut-off cardboard, cut out a pumpkin, stars, a bat, or a witches hat.
4. Glue a piece of orange tissue paper to the open back of the milk carton. Attach the cut out shapes to the tissue.
5. Place a fake candle inside the carton. (Do not use a real candle as the tissue can catch fire very easily!).
66. Ghost Blobs
Dropping a smudge of paint isn’t a mistake after all. These cute ghost smudges can be placed around the house or gifted in goodie bags. Just make sure to label that they are not edible!
This DIY works best using 3D liner paint since it’s thicker, but you could also mix acrylic paint with glue to achieve the same result.
1. Squeeze blobs of paint on to parchment paper and shape using a paintbrush or knife. Keep each ghost thick.
2. Add eyes, a mouth, or glitter while the paint is still wet.
3. Leave to dry. Do not remove them from the paper until fully dry.
67. Mummy Art
1. Layer bandage gauze across a piece of paper and glue it into place.
2. Paint or stick on a pair of eyes and a ghostly greeting.
3. Place the art piece into a black open frame and hang it in your home.
68. Pumpkin Stacks
These stacks are a simple but festive fall decoration that looks great in your garden in the run-up to Halloween.
Stack different sized pumpkins on top of each other, gluing into place if you need to. I love adding dried grass, fallen leaves, or flowers between the layers. You can also drape fairy lights around them to make an adorable porch light.
DIY Halloween Decorations For Kids
69. Ghost Tassels
1. Wind white yarn around a piece of card to create a thick loop.
2. Cut a piece of yarn and tie one side of the looped yarn together.
3. Cut the untied end to make a tassel.
4. Tie a piece of yarn midway down the tassel to make a round head for the ghost.
5. Glue two black dots on as eyes.
70. Glow Stick Broomsticks
1. Take a sheet of brown card or paper and make a series of incisions across one long side.
2. Cut lines upward, leaving just an inch of uncut paper at the top of each line. This should give a tasseled effect to the paper.
3. Wrap the uncut side of the paper around the bottom of a glow stick and tape it into place.
Follow the directions on Pinterest
71. Spiderweb Cake
Instead of just letting the kids eat the cake, get them involved in the baking and decorating process. Simply add icing or melted white chocolate to a piping bag and squiggle on a spider web design.
72. Candy Calendar
Make your own custom Halloween advent calendar using cut-up cereal boxes and paint. Fill each section with candies and use this to reward your kids when they complete a chore or do their homework.
73. Spider Plate
1. Cut the top edge off a black paper plate to make a spider's body.
2. Make eyes out of white paper and the cut-off black cardboard.
3. Using black paper, cut out your own spider legs.
74. Creepy Crawly Hairband
Make your own paper bugs using colored paper for the body and legs, and beads for the eyes. Glue your bugs to a plain hairband.
75. Acorn Art
Collect fallen acorns from trees or find medium-sized rocks to paint. Let the kids get creative with design from pumpkins to ghosts and everything in between.
76. Halloween Egg Figures
Cut out the holders from an empty egg carton and paint these adorable, stackable figurines.
77. Toilet Roll Characters
Cover empty toilet rolls in colored paper or vinyl paint to make fun Halloween characters.
78. Spider Lanterns
1. Paint your empty toilet rolls in a Halloween color of your choice, ideally keep the outside black, and choose orange, red or green for the inside.
2. Using a craft cutter, slice a circle out of the front of each tube.
3. Using a hot glue gun, make thin glue strings across the cutout circle in to form a spider web. Do this over parchment paper to prevent the glue from sticking to any surfaces.
4. Wait for the glue to dry. Then dab more glue on to your fake spider and attach it to the web.
79. Gone Fishing
Not only is this an eerie Halloween decoration, but it also makes a great playtime activity.
1. Fill a washbasin or bucket with water and add in drop of red food dye.
2. Place fake eyes and spider in the water for your little ones to fish out.
80. A Jarring Display
Put old jam jars and containers to use with this fun painting project suitable for kids, provided you don’t mind them getting too messy.
81. Candy Trap
This project uses paper mache art that no one does better than kindergarteners.
After covering a balloon with paper mache and leaving it to dry, paint on a pumpkin or Venus flycatcher face. Then, cut out the mouth, popping the balloon in the process. This forms a holder for candy that can be displayed inside or outside your home.
82. Dipped Pretzels
A snack or a decoration? Let the kids decide.
1. Mix food coloring into melted white chocolate or white frosting.
2. Dip pretzel sticks into the colored chocolate until just the tip is uncovered.
3. Add candied eyes and sprinkles.
83. Halloween Rocks
This is a great activity to keep the kids busy. Sit them down with rocks and paint, and let them get creative. These make adorable decorations on a front step or around the house.
84. Spider Corks
Once you’ve gone through a couple of bottles of wine in the process of making number 44 on this list, let the kids join in on the fun. Glue wine corks together to make these cute little spider toys.
Alice Kelly is a writer and storyteller with a passion for lifestyle, entertainment, and trending topics. When she’s not creating content for Your Tango, you can catch her working on creative fiction and vintage shopping.
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