DIY Halloween Decor

Written by Dawn Hammon
on Oct 08, 2018

Scary Decorations

When Halloween rolls around, it's time to update your decor. While there is no shortage of decorations available for purchase, there are also many you can DIY. Use this guide for ideas on how to make your home stand out.

Use Props You Already Have

Take a look around to find props you can put to use in your Halloween decor. Have hay? Make scarecrows. Did your garden spew more pumpkins that you can hope to carve? Create a display for your porch or make pumpkin mechanics. Haybales, corn stalks, gourds, and brooms can all be put to good use.

Make Hauntingly Festive Candles

Jack-O-Lanterns are a standard at Halloween. Crazy, fun, and scary faces backlit by an internal candle welcome trick-or-treaters at nearly every door. But there are a lot of other fun ways to illuminate the holiday. Make luminaries out of Halloween-themed paper bags. Cut designs out of the front, fill them partway with sand or Epson salt, and drop a candle in. Create a row of them to line the driveway or another path to the front door. Glass jars are another easy and festive option to create a cozy fall feel. Use Halloween-themed ribbon, small pinecones, leaves, or stickers to decorate the outside of the jar.

Make It a Banner Halloween

Use your holiday spirit to create a Halloween banner for your entryway or party table. Use felt or colored paper cut into a pendant shape and decorate it with string art, plastic bats, stickers, or letters. Attach each section using string, ribbon, yard, or cord. Make it fun or freaky; the design is up to you.

Send a Monochromatic Message

Gather up the assorted items from Halloweens past and grab the spray paint. Create a collection of similarly-colored items to welcome guests inside or outside the home. Use jars, pumpkins, decorated bags, crates, flower pots, vases, cups, and anything else you have on hand.

Create a Frighteningly Inviting Porch

Grab a bag of cotton and get to work. Stretch, string, and spread it out until the entryway becomes a menacing mess of cobwebs. Add store-bought spiders or make your own with yarn or heavy paper. Replace your porch light bulbs with black or orange bulbs for a somber effect. Of course a skeleton or two and a little smoke can move the creepy factor up the scale.

Bake Halloween Treats

Nothing speaks to the soul like homemade goodies. So when you're trying to make memories with your little ghouls, cookie cutters must be part of the equation. Use your favorite sugar cookie recipe or find one online. Color some icing and whip up some ghosts and goblins to share with friends or classmates.

Make Freaky Foods

Halloween is a fun time to be in the kitchen. After all, when else would your crew appreciate mummy-wrapped little smokies, strawberries dipped into white chocolate who come out as ghosts, spiderweb cake frosting, headstones in your dip, or a pumpkin puking yummy goodness onto a platter? And you don't even need to ask, of course spiders in a drink are a good idea.

Create Your Own Handmade Halloween Signs

Collect the scrap lumber or tear apart that project pallet in the garage. Cut, sand, and paint signs to hang in front of the door, over the coat rack, or as an addition to your table decor. You can decide whether you want to welcome or warn guests about what lies ahead. You could also make some scary headstones or grave markers in your front yard.

Make Costumes and Drinks for the Family

Parents and kids dressed up for Halloween.

Dig out the facepaint and the sewing machine to whip up some costumes. If you're better with a recipe book then a needle, create green or orange beer for the adults and lemon-lime soda for the tots. Turn spaghetti into a pile of brains. Have some fun with creepy games with bowls of icky foods hidden behind a board. Have your victims reach through a hole in the board and guess what they are touching. Make a pin the carrot on the scarecrow game with fun blindfolds or dartboard with prizes. Make a Halloween wreath, build a haunted maze in your garage, or create cheesecloth ghosts.

Dawn Hammon

Dawn Hammon has thrived in freelance writing and editor roles for nearly a decade. She has lived, worked, and attended school in Oregon for many years. Dawn currently spends her days convincing her children she is still smarter than them while creating new experiences with her husband of 24 years.&nbsp; Her multiple interests have led her to frequently undergo home improvement projects. She enjoys sharing the hard-earned knowledge that comes with it with the audience of DoItYourself.com. Dawn and her sister make up a power-tool loving duo that teaches classes to local women with the goal of empowering them to tackle their fears and become comfortable with power tools. Tapping into her enthusiasm for saving money and devotion to sustainable practices, Dawn has recently launched a passion project aimed at connecting eco-friendly products and socially-responsible companies with consumers interested in making conscientious purchases, better informing themselves about products on the market, and taking a stand in favor of helping to save the planet. When she is not providing stellar online content for local, national, and international businesses or trolling the internet for organic cotton clothing, you might find her backpacking nearby hills and valleys, traveling to remote parts of the globe, or expanding her vocabulary in a competitive game of Scrabble. Dawn holds a bachelor's degree in psychology, which these days she mostly uses to provide therapy for her kids and spouse. Most recently, I worked for a small local professional organizing and estate sale company for four years where I learned a ton about organizing and/or disposing of just about anything. She was raised in a tool-oriented, hands-on, DIY family. Her dad worked in the floor covering business and owned local floor covering businesses, so of course selling floor covering was one of her first jobs. Her brother was a contractor for about 30 years and site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity. I worked with him often, building decks, painting houses, framing in buildings, etc. With her sister, she holds power tool classes to empower women who are scared or have never used them. Not quite homesteaders, she did grow up with a farm, tractors, motorcycles, expansive gardens, hay fields, barns, and lots of repairs to do. Plus she and her family preserved foods, raised cattle and pigs, chopped and hauled firewood, and performed regular maintenance on two households, outbuildings, fencing, etc. As an adult, she has owned two houses. The first one she personally ripped out a galley kitchen and opened it up to the living area, plus updated every door, floor covering, and piece of trim in the place. In her current home, she's tackled everything from installing real hardwood flooring to revamping the landscape.