20+ Easy Halloween Crafts for Kids and Families to Make

I am a fashionista trained in fashion buying and fashion design. My creative skills come in handy when it's time to celebrate the holidays.

Family Fun Time With Halloween Crafts and DIYs

Got some fidgety kids at home who can't wait to go trick or treating? Make the time pass faster by engaging them in some Halloween craft projects! This is a list of easy to medium-level crafts for families to do together. Kids can do some of these on their own, like the popsicle stick crafts, while others will require adult assistance. You can buy most of the supplies at Dollar Tree or other dollar stores, so these projects won't ruin your holiday budget!

1. Handprint Halloween Art

This will make a great art project for Halloween! Here's how to make a piece like the one shown above.

1. Get your kids to place their hands and feet in non-toxic paint.
2. Have them make handprints and/or footprints on individual panels. These can be small canvases, pieces of cardboard or even pieces of wood.
3. Decorate the prints! For example, you can draw a pumpkin around them (like in the first panel above), add faces to turn them into ghosts (like in the second panel), or use three different colors to create candy corn footprints (like in the third panel).
4. Attach the panels together with ribbons and glue or tape.
5. Hang your art on the wall and admire it!

2. Easy Pumpkin Painting Ideas

Painting pumpkins is fun, and it's much safer than carving them! I've added some really cool ideas you can try out in the photos below, and the video above shows some kid-friendly pumpkin decorations as well. Please note that your family doesn't need to follow these examples exactly; some of them are a little advanced for kids. Use them as inspiration for your own painted jack o' lantern decorations!

Once you're finished, you can set your pumpkins on your front porch, in your garden or even on your table as a centerpiece.

3. DIY Kids' Halloween Costumes

Watch the video and browse the photos below to get some ideas for easy kids' Halloween costumes, like the light-up jellyfish costume (all it takes is a clear umbrella, some ribbons and some string lights!). The supplies that you need are fairly basic and can be bought online or at your local dollar store.

4. Halloween Popsicle Stick Crafts

No matter what time of year it is, popsicle stick projects are always a great way to get your kids crafting and having lots of fun! Like the photo above shows, you can make a vampire bat, a scarecrow, a mummy, Frankenstein and a pumpkin—or any other spooky, creepy character you can think of! The photos below show even more ideas for making Halloween-themed popsicle stick creations.

5. Spooky Spiderwebs

Decorate your front yard with faux spiderwebs this Halloween, and give your neighbors a right old scare! One great way to make DIY spiderwebs is to purchase a roll of beef netting. When you stretch it out and hang it from tree branches or doorways, it looks just like a web!

Kids will enjoy hanging the webbing all over your house. You can use the fake webs as indoor decorations or create spooktastic tunnels that lead up to your front door, like in the photos above. Don't forget to add some rubber spiders (or make spiders out of pipe cleaners)!

6. Pokémon Cake Pops

Kids will need your help with this project, but I guarantee they will love it. If you want to make a delicious treat for your family this Halloween, decorate some cake pops like Pokémon! You'll need a cake pops mold and recipe, plus fondant and modeling chocolate for the decorations. Have the kids help shape the eyes and mouths of their favorite characters, like Pikachu!

7. Easy Halloween Treats

If making cake pops is too time-consuming, then check out these yummy last-minute Halloween treats you can whip up in no time! Here's how to make the creepy popcorn-filled hand snack shown above. It's super easy and great for kids!

Ingredients and Supplies

• Bags of pre-popped popcorn
• Candy corn
• Clear plastic food-safe gloves
• Twist ties
• Optional: plastic Halloween-themed rings

Instructions

1. Place a piece of candy corn in each finger and thumb slot of a glove. These are the "fingernails"!
2. Fill the glove with pre-popped popcorn.
3. Use a twist tie to close the end of the glove tightly. (You can also do a knot.)
4. Optionally, slide a plastic Halloween ring onto one of the glove's fingers.

Scroll through the photos below for additional spooky treat ideas, from candy-filled buckets to cute cracker pumpkins.

8. Ghost and Skeleton Decorations

What's Halloween without ghosts and skeletons scaring the life out of people? Watch the video tutorial above to learn how to make inexpensive ghosts with supplies from the dollar store. It's easy to buy fake skeletons online for cheap—or find them at the dollar store as well!

Check out the photos below for inspiration on how to pose and place your various ghost and skeleton crafts!

9. Halloween Carnival Games

Make some fun games for your family to play on Halloween! You can place these on your porch and have trick or treaters join the fun. If you're hosting a Halloween party or participating in a school event, these games are a great addition!

The photo above shows a candy corn tossing game, which is super fun and festive. You can make your own version of this game by hot-gluing some paper cups to a large wooden board. Choose cups in orange, yellow and white to get the candy corn effect! Partially fill some balloons with rice to make "beanbags," and have guests try to toss them into the cups.

There are a bunch of other game ideas in the photos below, too!

10. Mini Pumpkin in a Pumpkin House

To make this adorable decoration, carve a medium-size pumpkin into a house by cutting out a window and a door. Then, just place a mini pumpkin inside; your kids will enjoy drawing or painting a funny face on it. Add a light source, and admire your cute pumpkin cottage! You can use this as an indoor or outdoor decoration.

11. Spooky Signs

You can buy the supplies for spooky signs like the ones shown above and below at craft stores like Michaels. Dollar stores also sell lots of items you can use to decorate the signs! Kids will have a great time gluing little Halloween decals, sequins, bows, googly eyes and other decorations onto the wooden signs.

12. Easy DIY Balloon Pumpkin Patch

Need to make some pumpkins in a hurry? No sweat! Buy some orange balloons, and fill them with a few pieces of candy. Blow them up, then draw on faces with a black Sharpie. Add a little green tissue paper stem at the top if you want. Place them all over your porch, and you've created a pumpkin patch! The candy will provide enough weight that they won't blow away, unless there's a lot of wind.

These simple pumpkins will make a great addition to your Halloween décor—especially when the kids come calling for candy! Allow trick or treaters to take home one balloon pumpkin each, if you like (or they can pop it and just take home the candy!).

13. Scary Wall Hangings

These wall hangings are both spooky and cute, and this project is very kid-friendly!

1. Buy premade paper rosettes or fold your own. (Watch this video tutorial to learn how to fold your own. You can skip the scoring if you don't care about making perfect rosettes, and you can use a glue stick instead of double-sided tape.)
2. Cut decorations out of colorful construction paper. For example, cut out black face shapes and a green stem to make a pumpkin, like in the photo above.
3. Glue or tape the decorations to the rosettes.
4. Add a string and hang them up!

14. Egg Carton and Toilet Paper Roll Halloween Crafts

Make some awesome hanging Halloween crafts using recyclable materials, like egg cartons and empty toilet paper rolls. You can make bats, spiders, ghosts, vampires, pumpkins or whatever you like. All you need are some cartons and rolls, paints, scissors, glue, googly eyes and some string to hang your creations from the ceiling!

15. Eyeballs in a Jar

This craft looks really, really creepy, and you won't believe how easy it is to make. Kids love gross stuff like this, so they'll be totally into the idea!

You can buy the eyeballs online for just a few bucks, then simply place them in an old jar and fill it with water. Add some food coloring to enhance the effect; you can use green food coloring like in the photo above, or try red or purple. For an extra touch, place the jar in front of an LED candle so it gets an eerie glow!

16. Halloween Balloon Displays

Ghostly balloon garlands would be an awesome decoration for a kids' Halloween party! Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a balloon garland, then buy balloons in Halloween colours, like orange, black, purple and green.

Now, this project is likely too complicated for children to do themselves, but they'll enjoy helping you fill up all the balloons. Plus, they'll think the finished project is amazing! Check out some other ideas for setting up Halloween-themed balloon displays below.

17. Sick Pumpkin

Here's a really cool (and hilariously gross) decoration for your front porch or Halloween table. Carve a pumpkin with a wide-open mouth like in the photo above, then place the pumpkin's flesh and seeds in its mouth so it looks like it's puking. Eww! The kids will love this, and it acts as a good reminder to not eat too much candy.

18. Two-Tiered Spiderweb Tray

This amazing craft is made with items from the dollar store and some glue. That's it! The kids can help with steps like putting the eyeballs in the wineglass and picking what kind of candy to put in the finished tray.

Supplies

• 2 plastic spiderweb bowls
• 1 skeleton hand plastic wine glass (or something similar)
• Some plastic eyeballs
• Strong glue, like the E6000 shown in the photo above

Instructions

1. Glue the bottom of the wine glass into the center of one bowl. Let dry.
2. Glue a bunch of eyeballs into the wine glass. Let dry.
3. Glue the other bowl on top of the stack of eyeballs. Let dry.
4. Fill your new tray with candy!

19. Frankenstein Footprint

Here's another version of a footprint craft that doubles as a memento. Your child's footprint is the perfect shape for a funny Frankenstein head!

Supplies

• Air-drying clay
• Green, black and white paint
• Paintbrushes

Instructions

1. Smush a bunch of air-drying clay into a flat shape that's a bit larger than your child's foot.
2. Have your child step onto the piece of clay to leave a footprint.
3. Remove the excess clay around the footprint and smooth the edges.
4. Optional: Add a hole if you want to hang the finished project on your wall!
5. Let the clay dry.
6. Have your child paint the footprint shape to look like Frankenstein; use the photo above as a reference, if needed.

If you don't have air-drying clay handy, there's a simpler way to do this craft: Just use a piece of cardboard instead, trace around your child's foot, cut it out, and paint the cardboard.

20. Painted and Bedazzled Pumpkin

Kids love this blinged-out craft! To start, paint a pumpkin a solid color, like black, white or purple. You can use a real pumpkin or a plastic one, if you want to make a long-lasting craft. Then, lay out a bunch of sequins, rhinestones and fake jewels, and let your kids have a blast gluing them to the pumpkin!

21. Professional-Looking Halloween Treats

This last photo gallery is here for inspiration! These are all professional—or professional-looking—treats and baked goods made for Halloween. They are super impressive-looking and too complicated for kids to make, but you could do a simpler version of these with your family. For example, dip strawberries in white chocolate, then have the kids drizzle on dark chocolate to make spooky faces. Enjoy looking at these photos and drooling!

Enjoy Making Spooky Crafts and Decorations With Your Children!

No matter how easy or how tricky the craft you're attempting is, there are ways to get the kids involved. I hope you can make your Halloween décor a family project this year. If nothing else, the crafting will distract them from candy... for a few minutes! Have a creepy, crafty, spooky, scary Halloween!

Comments

FlourishAnyway from USA on October 03, 2021:

These combine two favorite things: crafts and holidays! I like the eyeballs in a jar idea best, I think.