90s Halloween decor is the paper witch on a moon taped to the classroom board, the glowing plastic jack-o’-lantern by the front door and orange and black crepe paper streamers everywhere. Much of it was designed decades earlier, and Beistle still prints some of the same cut-outs for a few dollars.
These sixteen rooms, porches and projects come from the people who decorated or made them, from a 1960s kitchen covered in die-cuts to thrifted trick-or-treat pails turned into lanterns.
1. Beistle Die-Cuts On A 1960s Kitchen’s Cabinets
Spot: White cabinet doors in a vintage 1960s kitchen
Pieces: A pack of new-old-stock Beistle die-cuts from the Burley Park Flea Market
Also on show: Vintage Halloween records, including a Disney Haunted Mansion record
Difficulty: Beginner, styling rather than making
A witch, a black cat on a moon and another black cat sit on the white cabinet doors, with crocheted pot holders running along the top. Emily took the idea from @Vintagevspot on Instagram, whose grandmother decorated her kitchen the same way.
The counters stay nearly bare on purpose, with one fall tin and her handmade “groovy ghosts” flying in.
2. A Framed Die-Cut Wall That Keeps Fragile Paper Safe
Spot: A wall above a console
Pieces: Vintage paper die-cuts, napkins and paper tablecloth sections
Hung with: Float frames, record frames, thread and Command hooks
Difficulty: Beginner
Atomic Redhead shows the damage first: lifted printing where tape came off, torn backs, old discolored tape and extra holes from tacks and staples. Her wall is the answer, with dancing skeletons, a haunted house and jack-o’-lanterns behind glass in black frames and black cat die-cuts along the top.
A float frame holds the paper by pressure between two panes. Frames also suit kitchens and bathrooms, where there is water.
3. A Kitschy Mantel With Beistle Cut-Outs And A Lit-Up Thrift-Store Painting
Spot: A stone fireplace
Pieces: Beistle cut-outs, a vintage noisemaker collection, flea market leg lamps with orange bulbs and paper bats
Lit with: A Treetopia “Tuxedo Black” lit garland and battery LED twinkle lights
Difficulty: Beginner
Jennifer Perkins piles on the kitsch. Orange, black and white streamers hang over the firebox, and a swarm of paper bats flies around it. The DIY is the painting above: a thrift-store landscape made spooky with black paint, sparkly baker’s twine, a painted bat and touches of orange.
Battery twinkle lights push through small holes poked with an awl or a ballpoint pen, each held by a dab of hot glue behind. Her one warning is to be sure the painting is not valuable first.
4. A Bright Retro Living Room Built Around One Piece Of Halloween Art
Spot: A white living-room mantel and hearth
Pieces: A large retro printable, a Beistle design, dollar-store ghosts and a DIY sheet ghost
Palette: Orange, black, off-white and yellow
Difficulty: Beginner
Linda and her daughter Hannah planned the room around one print on the mantel, an old-time trick-or-treating scene Hannah designed and they sell on Etsy. One piece of art sets the palette, heights vary, and ghosts repeat around the room.
The oldest piece is the ceramic jack-o’-lantern with ghosts in the entry. Linda made it “probably 35 years ago”, and for years, when money was tight, it was their only Halloween decoration.
5. Pumpkin Blow Molds And A Feather Tree Around A Roadside Mirror
Spot: A white electric fireplace mantel
Pieces: Pumpkin blow molds, a flea-market Halloween tree, estate-sale ornaments and Hobby Lobby black cats
Lit with: Two strings of orange fairy lights, LED candlesticks and tealights
Cost: The antique mirror was free, from a bulk trash day
Emily built this mantel around an antique mirror with a “beautifully ruined” backing, picked up on a neighboring city’s bulk trash day. A large pumpkin blow mold stands at each end, and LED candles in front bounce light off the dark glass without any open flame near the decor.
Thrifted pre-cut Halloween fabric squares hang diagonally below as bunting, beside black cat cards from a vintage Whitman pack.
6. A Trick Or-Treat Pail Bookcase
Spot: A green bookcase
Pieces: Jack-o’-lantern pail blow molds, flea-market alarm clocks, vintage Gurley candles and thrifted candy-corn candles
Where to look: eBay or thrift stores, for vintage pails
Made by hand: Upcycled canisters and cardstock bats
The orange pails grow shelf by shelf, smallest at the top and biggest at the bottom. Between them sit antique alarm clocks, a vintage camera, binoculars, old liquor bottles and Gurley candles shaped like owls, cats and witches. Cheese-puff canisters and coffee tins wear vintage Halloween images and ads, and black cardstock bats cut from a printed template are stuck on with double-sided Scotch tape.
7. A Kids’ Hocus Pocus Bedroom With A Garage-Sale Blow Mold
Spot: Her daughters’ bedroom
Theme: Hocus Pocus, inspired by a barn-wood sign
Pieces: Vintage-style die-cuts, a garage-sale blow mold, a ceramic Halloween tree and a quilted ghost garland
Palette: Orange, black and pink
The house rule at The Vettel Farm is clean your room first, then decorate. Vintage-style die-cuts line the white box shelves next to the girls’ jewelry boxes, including a fortune-telling witch she calls reasonably priced. A wall of Halloween picture books finishes the room, and the post lists all 15 titles.
8. A Jadeite Hutch Full Of Paper Mache Jack-O’-Lanterns
Spot: A white hutch stacked with jadeite plates and bowls
Pieces: Vintage paper mache jack-o’-lanterns and a small pumpkin garland
Cost: Often over $100 each for true vintage, she says
Difficulty: A collector’s display rather than a DIY
Green glass and orange paper share the shelves here. The post doubles as a short history, from pressed paper to paper mache in the 1930s, then tin and plastic. Cat, witch and vegetable shapes can cost hundreds, and an original tissue insert raises the price. She has found some for less at estate sales.
9. A Retro Porch With Stacked White And Orange Jack-O’-Lanterns
Spot: A brick porch with a blue door
Pieces: Dollar-store plastic and Pottery Barn pumpkins, a raffia witch broom and a printable sign
Finish: Dixie Belle chalk paint outside and gold spray paint inside, on the white ones
Palette: Black, orange and white
Linda’s white jack-o’-lanterns stack on a white bench beside a black lantern, lit with battery candles, while a few stay traditional vintage orange. On the door, a handmade broom with a stick handle and raffia bristles hangs with their printable “trick or treat” sign, and cat, owl and bat silhouettes cover the glass. The candy bowl is a galvanized bucket painted bright orange.
10. An Orange, Black And White Retro Porch
Spot: A narrow porch and steps on a retro house
Pieces: Pumpkins from the local patch, cats, a broomstick, handmade treat bags and a Moon Phase curtain
Made by hand: Giant house decals from removable wallpaper on thin vinyl sheets
Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate, sewing optional
Orange, black and white only, which is what Halloween looked like when she was a child. Standard orange pumpkins layer up the steps, with a little red among the accessories.
The giant decals are removable wallpaper printed by Spoonflower, applied to thin vinyl and hung with 3M Command Velcro strips. Spoonflower sponsored the 2018 post, which also has a bandana for her dog, Bruce.
11. An Orange And Black Backyard Party With A Thrifted Blow Mold
Spot: A small table in her backyard
Pieces: A thrifted jack-o’-lantern-on-a-cornstalk blow mold, grocery-store pumpkin candy buckets and a reproduction Beistle black cat banner
Palette: Orange and black, nothing else
Lit with: Christmas village house light cords instead of the original
Pam Kessler threw this small party “for Bones”, her skeleton, who sits at the table. Everything is orange or black, down to the thermoses, and the black cat banner and Jack-O-Lantern Fortune Game are reproductions from Amazon. Patterned plates sit with plain napkins rather than a matching set.
She never lights old blow molds with their original cords. Village house light cords from craft stores take the same bulbs and clip in at the back.
12. A Hay Bale Party Styled Around Beistle Decorations
Spot: An outdoor party against a white wall
Pieces: The Jack-O’-Lantern Game, Witch Fortune Wheel Game, Witch Moon and Pumpkin cutouts, Scat Cat Band cutouts and Cat Head napkins
Found at: Beistle’s own Vintage Beistle online store
Lit with: Market lights, Edison bulbs and battery tea lights
Two hay bales with a whitewashed board on top make the table, with galvanized buckets of fall flowers and bobbing for apples. The Witch Fortune Wheel Game was first produced by Beistle in 1927.
The DIY part hangs overhead: craft-store paper mache pumpkins, painted, strung on fishing line and glowing with battery tea lights.
13. Gathered And Fringed Crepe Paper Festoons
Materials: Crepe paper rolls in three colors, a sewing machine or needle and strong thread, scissors and sewing clips
Size: 36-inch lengths for the fringe festoon
Cost: “A few dollars”, she says
Difficulty: Beginner, and it can be hand-stitched
Marsha Lynn Smith owns vintage crepe paper Halloween swags and shows how to get the look cheaply. The gathered festoon is two strips overlapped about an inch with a third centered on top, stitched down the middle on the longest straight stitch with the tension at its strongest. Held taut, the paper ruffles as it feeds through.
The fringe version stacks 8-12 pieces, stitched about 3/8 inch from the edge and fringed 1/4-3/8 inch, then crushed and rolled to fluff.
14. Honeycomb Pumpkins, Crepe Paper Lanterns And A Bat Garland
Makes: Three projects, honeycomb pumpkins, a crepe lantern branch and a bat garland
Materials: 5-inch orange honeycomb tissue balls, orange and green crepe paper, foam balls, black tissue paper, cardstock and a branch
Difficulty: Beginner
Rubyellen Bratcher keeps these cute rather than spooky. The honeycomb balls are trimmed to a squat pumpkin shape from a cardstock pattern and get torn green crepe stems and leaves. Foam balls wrapped in torn orange crepe become little lanterns on a branch. The bat garland layers about 40 tissue-paper bats between two cardstock bats on string, so it opens like an accordion.
15. Purple, Green And Black Crepe Paper Pom Poms
Materials: Crepe paper in purple, lime green and black, a roughly 3 x 6 inch piece of cardboard and ribbon
Found at: Dollar Tree, Michaels or Party City, for the crepe paper
Uses: Around the house, on a party table or in a boo bag
Difficulty: Beginner
Purple, lime green and black is the 90s palette in one quick craft. Jen Goode wraps layered crepe paper at least seven times around the cardboard, slides it off and ties the middle with ribbon long enough to hang. The loops are cut, the strips are snipped toward the ribbon, and the whole thing fluffs into a ball.
16. A Folk-Art Foam Pumpkin And Black Cat
Materials: FloraCraft foam balls and Smooth Finish, DecoArt paint in orange, white, black and yellow, a foam cutter and clay
Finish: Smooth, painted red-orange with yellow hollows
Time: Extra drying time for the Smooth Finish
Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate
Lucy at Craftberry Bush carves a grinning jack-o’-lantern from a foam ball. A bottle cap presses the eye circles, a spoon hollows them, and the handle of a wooden spoon presses in texture before the mouth is cut out. The cat is two foam balls on a disc, painted black, with clay ears and a tissue ruff.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Halloween Decorations Were Popular In The 90s?
Paper die-cuts of witches, black cats, owls and jack-o’-lanterns, many of them Beistle designs, on classroom boards and home walls. Light-up plastic blow molds and plastic trick-or-treat pails, orange and black crepe paper streamers and ceramic light-up jack-o’-lanterns were everywhere too, and Hocus Pocus arrived in 1993. Many of those designs were decades old by then and still being printed or sold.
Are Beistle Halloween Decorations Still Made?
Yes. The Beistle Company in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, still prints its classic designs in the USA, and the Vintage Beistle line reissues popular designs from the original artwork. In October 2026, beistle.com listed 86 items in its Halloween-Vintage range, including cutouts and a jointed skeleton at $7.99 each.
How Can I Tell Real Vintage From A Reproduction?
For paper mache jack-o’-lanterns, 1930s originals usually have a smooth finish and reproductions a crackly one, antique lantern paper is translucent, and true vintage paper shows wear on both sides. For die-cuts, Beistle has reissued many of its own designs, some sellers pass those reissues off as originals, and the Beistle trademark is printed on its products. Many cheap “vintage” die-cuts online are copies by other makers.
How Do I Hang Die-Cuts Without Damaging Them?
Thread through a hole that is already in the piece, hung from a Command hook, works for flat die-cuts. Float frames hold paper by pressure between two panes, and plate stands, easels and a ribbon clothesline with mini clothespins work too. Tape, tacks and staples are the things that lift printing and tear vintage paper. Reproductions are fine with removable putty.
