10 Fun Halloween Crafts to Do With Your Kids

Halloween Crafts for Kids

Holidays and children just seem to go together. It's so easy to get wrapped up in everyday life and forget how to truly let go and have fun. But for those of us who have children in our lives, they just seem to bring out the joy and the excitement that our lives so desperately need.

Around the holidays, they seem to be able to feel the tension in the air, and with their laughter and energy, cause the rest of us to want to have some fun, too. What better way to let go and have fun than to pull out all of the fun food items and all the craft supplies and create?

Fill your home with skeletons, monsters, ghosts, and spiders this Halloween by letting your children use their imaginations with glue, scissors, and construction paper. In no time, they will have your house decked out for the season and ready for trick-or-treaters on Halloween night.

This article is jam-packed with crafts for every age and every family, from lit-up milk jug ghosts for your front porch to spiders and pumpkins to hang from your ceiling. I hope you have as much fun putting all of these together with your kids as I did putting together this article!

1. Monster Rocks

Materials

• Rocks
• Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Glue
• Craft items (construction paper, felt, foam, string, pom-poms, glitter, etc.)

Directions

1. The painted rock is an old favorite for kids. My husband talks about how he and his siblings used to make these for each other for Christmas and birthdays. These make great gifts for kids because they're fun to make, they allow for a great deal of creativity, and they're cheap, but they're also great to make just for fun.
2. Allow your kids to use paintbrushes to paint their rocks any color they'd like, and then a glue bottle to attach googly eyes, pom-poms, string, felt, or anything else you have available. Your kids can make not only monsters but ghosts, witches, scarecrows, werewolves, vampires, or anything else their little hearts desire and their imaginations can come up with.

2. Masking Tape Mummy

Materials

• Black construction paper
• Masking tape
• Googly eyes
• Scissors
• Glue

Directions

1. Depending on if you want these to be small handheld mummies or if you want them to be life-sized, you can either let your kids freehand their mummy shapes, provide them with a pattern to trace, or have them lay down on the floor and trace their bodies.
2. Next, let your kids decorate their mummies with wrappings (masking tape) and googly eyes. Life-sized, these would make great household decorations for your entryway or even for their bedrooms. Small-sized ones would be great for stringing together and for decorating party tables.

If you don't want to use wide masking tape for these, it's easy just to use simple household Scotch tape. You know kids love using tape!

3. Stained Glass Pumpkin

Materials

• Black construction paper
• Colored tissue papers
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Hole punch
• String

Directions

1. These beauties are great for displaying in windows to let the light shine through all of the pretty tissue paper colors. You'll want to start by cutting at least two pumpkin shapes (with stems) out of black construction paper.
2. Lightly fold them in half without making creases in the paper, make a cut with your scissors in the middle, and cut a pumpkin shape (without the stem) out of the middle of each one. Make sure to leave a sufficient amount of room around the outside to glue the edges of the tissue paper squares.
3. Now cut up your tissue paper into small squares. Using the glue stick, it should be fun to attach the edges of different colored squares together to a size a little bigger than the pumpkin-shaped hole you cut out of the middle of your construction paper. When finished, glue around the edges of one of your black pumpkin shapes and lay your tissue paper down on top of it.
4. You'll want to cut any tissue paper that goes outside of the black construction paper pumpkin. Now glue the other one the same way and lay it on top of the other one. You want to try and overlap both pumpkins perfectly. Punch a hole at the very top in the middle of the stem with your hole punch and thread your string through. Tie the ends of the string together, and you've got a beautiful stained-glass pumpkin!

4. Monster Cups

Materials

• Plastic cups
• Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Black paint markers
• Googly eyes
• Glue
• Any extra craft items you desire (construction paper, pipe cleaners, etc.)

Directions

1. Start by turning your plastic cups upside down and painting them whatever color(s) you wish. Faces can be painted on in a variety of paint colors or with a paint marker. Details can also be added with color or with craft items. The final touch would be to add your googly eyes and give your creation life.

5. Milk Jug Ghosts

Materials

• Empty milk jugs in various sizes
• Black permanent markers
• String of twinkle lights

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Directions

1. Make sure that you wash out any milk jugs you have very thoroughly. Any leftover milk or juice left over in the jugs will start to stink really bad after a while. Allow your kids to draw faces on the front of them with permanent markers.
2. Cut holes in the backs of the jugs to stuff the lights in, making sure to leave the plug out, position them where you want around your house, and plug them in to light them up! Easy peasy!

6. Jack O' Lanterns

Materials

• Bright orange construction paper
• Black construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Hole punch
• String

Directions

1. Start by folding your orange construction paper pieces in half (either direction will give you great pumpkins). On the folded side, cut three-inch or so long lines about an inch apart all the way across. Out of your black construction paper, cut eyes, noses and mouths for your pumpkins.
2. With the fold facing outward, unfold your paper and roll it inward opposite your fold (like the picture). Spread glue from your glue stick on the edge of your paper to seal the edges together. You may have to hold them for a few minutes until the glue dries. Now glue your face pieces onto your jack o' lanterns.
3. Punch holes in either side of the top of each of your pumpkins and thread the string through. You can either hang your jack o' lantern by itself or string a bunch of them together. And Voila!

7. Handprint Spiders

Materials

• Black construction paper OR
• Black paint and any color of construction paper
• Scissors
• String
• Googly eyes
• Glue stick
• Your little one's hands

Directions

1. There are many ways of doing this fun project! You can either let your kids trace their hands on black construction paper and cut them out, or they can put their hands in the black paint, press their hands on another color of construction paper, and cut them out.
2. If you are going the paint way, once one hand has been pressed, have your child press their other hand facing the opposite direction of the first with their palm overlapping the other palm print. Cut it out in one whole piece. If you are using construction paper, you'll want to glue both handprints together at the palms facing opposite directions.

Tip: Try and avoid pressing/tracing thumbs, as spiders have 8 fingers and not 10. This may be a good lesson moment for your child. When completed, add the eyes to your spider. You may punch a hole in the middle of your spider with a pencil or other object, thread a string through and tie a knot on one side of the spider to hang it.

8. Yarn Spider Webs

Materials

• A bottle of liquid glue
• A skein of white yarn
• A piece of wax paper
• A paper plate

Directions

1. This one is extremely messy, but lots of fun! First things first, lay out a large piece of wax paper to lay your spider web as it is being finished, and fill a paper plate with your glue. Cut eight pieces of yarn of the same length, the width you would like for your spider web. Pull each piece of yarn, one at a time, through the glue and lay it out on your wax paper like you're cutting a pizza. Start with an X, and then keep going around the circle "slicing" your pizza.
2. Now your web is ready to be wound. With the end of the string, drag it through the glue (you'll want someone to hold the string bundle as you unwind it so you don't pull the whole thing into the glue), and then start draping it from spindle to spindle on your spider web in shallow "U" shapes starting from the inside and going in circular patterns all the way around until your spider web is complete. Cut the end of the string and secure the end in place on another string in your web.
3. When finished, you'll want to leave your web alone overnight to completely dry through. In the meantime, make some more! The next morning, you'll be able to simply peel the whole thing from your wax paper for a completed spider web.

9. Paper Towel Ghosts

Materials

• Paper towels
• Markers
• Fishing line
• Scissors

Directions

1. Start by cutting lengths of fishing line that will hang your ghosts like you want (if you choose to do so), and tie them around their necks to hold the paper towel and stuffing inside. Next, depending on how big you want your ghosts, bundle up half of a paper towel. Wrap another whole paper towel on top of it, pinching under the balled-up paper towel to make a neck.
2. Now tie one of your lengths of fishing line around the neck of your ghost and double knot it to keep it tight. I hung these from the chandelier over my dining table. It was beautiful, and your kids will love seeing their work hanging up in the house. Before hanging them, though, don't forget to draw on their faces.
3. For smaller, more delicate ghosts, consider using tissue paper for your ghost instead of paper towels. But with tissue, ball up an entire tissue inside the head.

10. Paper Bag Monster Puppets

Materials

• 1 package of brown paper bags
• 1 package of construction paper
• 1 box of markers
• Scissors
• Glue sticks

Directions

1. The only directions I can give you here are to lay out all of the supplies on the table and let your children's imaginations go wild. You can't lay out crafts in front of children without something amazing happening.
2. Encourage your kids to make a monster, a cat, a witch, a mummy, a ghost, a spider, or anything else they can think of. Maybe you can supply pictures of some of these characters to them for some inspiration, or you can sit down and make one yourself.
3. While you're creating, talk about stories that you can enact with your characters. What kind of characters might you need to put on a play to create the story they are thinking of? The imagination this project can inspire can go way beyond one project to a whole day, a whole week, a whole month, or even the whole year.

Kids Love Crafting!

Obviously, there are so many more kids' crafts that are possible, but there's no way to list every option here. Stay tuned, and I'll address many more fun crafts that you can fill your home and your children's hearts with over the holidays.

In the meantime, check out some fun and easy Halloween treats to make with your kids.

© 2013 Victoria Van Ness

Comments

Victoria Van Ness (author) from Fountain, CO on February 24, 2015:

Not a problem! I loved doing these myself. Who says you have to be kid to enjoy Halloween fun! :)

Emma B Lantry from Tennessee on October 04, 2014:

These are such cute little ideas. I'm going to have to do a few of them with my kids this month. Thanks for sharing.

Victoria Van Ness (author) from Fountain, CO on October 30, 2013:

You're right! That would be a good idea. What adult doesn't love using scissors, glue, and construction paper? I know I do! Thank you for the wonderful comment.

Donna Herron from USA on October 30, 2013:

So many great ideas - love it!! I especially like the masking tape mummy. Such a cute idea and so easy! I think it would be a fun activity for an adult Halloween party, too. Thanks for sharing so many wonderful ideas. Voted up and pinned!!