17 Halloween Crafts to Decorate (and Spookify) the Inside of Your Home

Spookify your home and turn it into a haunted estate.

moths and pumpkins displayed on antique books

Decorating for Halloween is a breeze with homemade crafts that add a spooky charm to your home. Instead of rushing to stores, take the days leading up to Halloween to create unique décor that offers a playful yet eerie atmosphere for your guests. These Halloween crafts are easy enough for the whole family to enjoy, using simple items like flowers and furniture modifications. Dive into 17 creative ideas that will transform your home into the ultimate haunted manor.

1.Pick Your Poison

October is the time for summoning spirits, including the boo-zy kind. To give your home bar a macabre makeover, decant liquor into dark-as-night infinity jars—the classic apothecary vessels made from black ultraviolet glass. They won’t give your beverages eternal life but will help them last longer. Download our labels, print them on sticker paper, and get affixing and mixing.

2.Batty Mantel

To summon a swarm of nocturnal nomads, use our downloadable template to cut out your own flock of bats. A tip? Bend the wings for extra eeriness, then stick on removable adhesive dots and let ‘em loose around your house. We think they look especially spooky when given the illusion that they’re flying out of your fireplace.

3.Haunted Mirror

Our print-and-adhere template conjures up a ghostly vision. Entwine a pair of wall sconces with hissing snakes, arrange black calla lilies in vessels dark as tombstones, and unleash the ghost who’s been trapped behind the glass. One glimpse at it, and people will never forget the night they reached for your candy bowl.

4.Creepy Candles

Cast a sinister glow over any setting with a cluster of white tapers dripping with “blood” (actually red candle wax). Fill a cup or a small pail with sand, and plant white candles inside so they stand upright. Light a red candle and tip it over the white candles so the wax drips down the tops and sides, being careful not to burn yourself. Let the wax cool completely before removing the candles from the sand.

5.Spooky Halloween Paper Garland

Jaunty jack-o’-lanterns and foreboding bats… these are Halloween-appropriate versions of the classic paper-doll chain. To make it, print our template onto card stock, fold the paper to its width, trace it, and cut it out. Then, use scissors for the outline, and a craft knife or hole punch for facial features and smaller details. Intersperse with fringed garlands to add color.

6.Friendly Ghost Shades

These easy, inexpensive window treatments are a spooky addition to windows for Halloween. Trim a black paper window shade from a home store to fit your window, then print out our templates before cutting them out and tracing them onto thin white paper. Cut out the ghosts, and then stretch and tape your window shade flat onto a safe work surface. Spray the back of the ghost cut-out with adhesive, then press it onto the shade.

7.Cheesecloth Spirits

Inviting these spooky floating guests inside will keep other ghouls on their toes. Making these foreboding decorations is actually very easy—styrofoam mannequin heads are sold at wig shops, and while they can stand on their necks, suspending them lets the cloth flow freely.

8.Vellum Halloween Table Lanterns

Set a spooky scene when the sun goes down with these dramatic lanterns made from simple supplies and our exclusive clipart designs. Start by choosing one of the following templates and cutting out the lantern template on the second page. Trace the template four times, side by side, on 24-by-36-inch heavy black paper. Using a bone folder, crease the sides of the template where they meet, and then cut it out. Print four copies of your chosen illustration out onto vellum paper using a laser printer. Cut these pieces just larger than the frame “windows,” and then tape the vellum into the frame.

9.Eyeball Tableware

Have eyes all over your Halloween party by adorning plates, glasses, and pitchers with our clip-art eyeballs. Use photo-quality paper to ensure the prints don’t look grainy.

10.Butterfly Specimens

Beautiful butterflies seem to float off the pages of a dusty old tome, growing as they flit around this library. You can make these creatures in different sizes for your display. Start by printing the butterflies using our three templates. Print them on heavyweight paper. Trim butterflies roughly, then use some spray adhesive to adhere them to black paper. Carefully cut out each butterfly.

11.Candy Artifact Display

Tempt your Halloween party guests with an array of candies masquerading as botanical or nautical artifacts. To begin, fill large glass jars with sweets, and then mark each jar with a label that sounds convincing—here, the meringues are given the moniker “jellyfish skeletons.” If you don’t have a cabinet, you can create your own by arranging the jars in wooden cubbies or crates; we painted these a deep slate gray.

12.Drilled “Galactic” Pumpkins

Make a big bang with a tumble of pumpkins studded like the starry bands of the Milky Way. Pick a few to be part of the interstellar arc, then cut a hole underneath and hollow them out. Next, punch holes in the gourds using a drill and two different-sized bits. Have fun with the placement of your planets and stars—random patterns have universal appeal. Arrange them with a few un-carved pumpkins in varying sizes, then tuck battery-powered candles inside, and imagine a galaxy far, far away.