Make the Halloween craft: Trace a moon onto one pumpkin and a bat onto another using a pencil. Leaving the traced shapes unpainted, paint the rest of the moon pumpkin black and the bat pumpkin white. Hammer crafts nail every ¼-inch around the edges of the moon and bat, making sure the nails remain slightly above the surface of the pumpkin. For each pumpkin, randomly wrap string in a contrasting color around the nails to create the webbed design. Finish by looping the string around the adjacent nails to create an outline of the shape. Make the Halloween craft: To make the figures, cut cat shapes from black foam core and use tape to attach the back side to something heavy (like a mason jar filled with rocks or sand) so they stand up straight and don’t blow over in the fall breeze. Add paper stars and a celestial-inspired wreath to the front door to complete the spooky look. Make the Halloween craft: Choose sticker or die-cut letters in a style or size to your liking and hot-glue them to a plastic cauldron. Pull apart some polyfill and drape inside and to the side of the bucket to imitate a bubbly witch’s brew. Make the Halloween craft: Purchase new pieces of paving stone in various sizes. Piece them together and “draw” a spiderweb using black electrician’s tape. Spread the pieces apart and lay on the ground for an “eek” entrance to your home. Make the Halloween craft: Apply a few even layers of silver spray paint to nine plastic skeleton hands (available at dollar stores). Add a liberal amount of hot glue to the back of the hands and affix in place around a small chalkboard circle. Write a spooky phrase in the center with chalk, then hang the wreath with string. Make the Halloween craft: Pick three pumpkins of varying sizes and cut the stems off the two bigger pumpkins. Paint all three black, tracing a “B” on the small pumpkin, an “O” on the midsize pumpkin, and a second “O” on the large pumpkin. For each pumpkin, fill in the letter outline with metal-leaf adhesive and place a silver-leaf sheet on top. Brush the silver leaf in place using a soft bristle brush until no excess leaf remains. Gently brush the silver-leaf letters with a sealer, and outline each letter with decorative tacks. Complete the look by stacking the pumpkins, starting with the largest on bottom. Make the Halloween craft: Purchase real or craft white pumpkins, tracing a design imitating lights onto the fronts. Using yellow and black craft paint, fill in the designs. Stack the pumpkins on balustrades that have been painted a glossy black. Make the Halloween craft: Remove and discard the glass from an inexpensive black frame. Insert a piece of web-patterned paper cut to size. Using craft paint, add decorative stripes onto an oversize plastic spider, then attach the arachnid to the paper with a dab of hot glue. Make the Halloween craft: Cut an artificial pumpkin in half and spray-paint each half white. Once the paint is dry, stick tape along the natural indents of the pumpkin to create stripes, then spray-paint the slices black. Allow the paint to dry before removing the tape, then hang the pumpkins and craft store wooden frames using picture hooks. Make the Halloween craft: Create the body of the spider with halved foam balls, then use wire and foam tubing to create the spider legs. Attach hairy brown fabric to the body with hot glue and you’ll have a whole gang of spiders to place around the house. Make the Halloween craft: Adhere our small, medium, and large downloadable vintage images to magnifying glasses. Place the magnifying glasses on a newspaper or book page for a more believable trick. Make the Halloween craft: Cover a wood pallet board with white paint, then freehand three ovals in black paint to form a ghost face. Repeat with orange paint to create a smiling jack-o-lantern to match. Make the Halloween craft: Paper lanterns—black, silver, and white—hung at alternating heights offer visual interest and act as a backdrop to a few “sleeping” cut-out paper bats. Plastic spiders scatter across a trio of pillows thanks to a bit of magic (and hot glue). Make the Halloween craft: For this craft, you’ll need bright colored cardstock or tissue paper and black cardstock. Cut out the bright color to fit the windows and set aside. Cut outlines of hands and feet from the black cardstock. Attach the hands to the bright cardstock and adhere to the windows using removable tape. Attach the feet to the base of the door or house. Make the Halloween craft: Download our free images, below, then use them to create custom decals that work on smooth, nonpourous surfaces. Follow the decal-paper manufacturer’s instructions to transfer the images, then stick the decals to the dishes and spray on a coat of clear high-gloss acrylic finish. Hang your infested dishes in a swarm for intimidating impact. Make the Halloween craft: Using chalk, draw a spiderweb on a round black door mat. Cut pieces of clothesline to fit your design. Singe the ends of the clothesline with a flame to keep them from fraying, then use heavy-duty white glue to adhere the pieces to the mat, using the chalk lines as your guide. Make the Halloween craft: Select carvable elements that vary in shape and size for visual interest, and tuck in other seasonal accents, like crows, around the pumpkins. Make the Halloween craft: Create your own silhouettes of family members (cast a light against a wall and trace the outline of their heads) or download silhouettes of your choice from online. Mount the cutouts onto bright cardstock and add patterned tape as borders. Create another design on the wall out of more patterned tape. On the mantel, collect a few old-fashioned plastic treat buckets and other paper accents, such as an accordion fan. Drape honeycomb garland in seasonal hues, too. Make the Halloween craft: Purchase a premade wreath—this one is made of grapevine, then color it white with acrylic spray paint. Tuck in a bit of grown moss, as well as a few Halloween-theme accents, like a miniature crow, a small skeleton, some spiders, and an eerie welcome sign. Make the Halloween craft: Spray-paint rubber snakes a glossy black. Arrange the snakes along the edges of a thick plastic-foam board so some are slithering in under the mat and some are slithering out. Glue the snakes to the board’s edges, then set the foam board under your doormat, arranging the snakes to their fullest spooking potential. Make the Halloween craft: Prop up an odd-shape piece of hardscape material at an angle. (In place of heavy rock, use a piece of foam core, painted and streaked gray.) Tuck skeleton hands and skull (and feet, if desired), in a pose and scatter fallen leaves around the scene. Make the Halloween craft: Gold makes a luxe impact in this vignette. Using gold paper, accordion-fold half sheets and attach to sticks for a fan display. Paint a few frames—some black, some gold—as well as other accents of your choosing (here, a few masks). Look for gold-foil leaves or paint some faux options to glue to a ribbon for a homemade garland. Once Halloween is over, swap in a fw pretty bursts of color—like flowers and dried seeds—to transition the scene to Thanksgiving. Make the Halloween craft: Cut a square of felt—start with 5 inches—and round the corners. Cut the square spirally, until you end at the center. Begin rolling at the outer edge, hot-gluing as you go, to create the flower. When you reach the center piece, glue it to the bottom to hold in place. Attach the felt flowers to a wreath form in the pattern of your choosing, adding googly eyes and a pretty patterned bow. Make the Halloween craft: Decorate white paper bags with spider stickers and craft tape. Fill the bottoms of the bags with sand, then place them on stairs or along a walkway. Rather than use real candles, we turned to battery-operated votive candles for safety. Make the Halloween craft: Add a coat of white paint to small peat pots. Glue black trim around the top of each pot, finishing with a spiderweb die cut and filling with your favorite Halloween candies. Make the Halloween craft: Buy three white plastic bowls and predrill holes in the bottoms. Run twine or fishing line through the holes and anchor with duct tape. Cut two large squares of white cotton cloth, snip holes in the centers, and thread onto the overturned bowl. Cut black felt facial features, adhere with hot glue, and hang ghosts on your front porch or entryway. Make the Halloween craft: Cut metal sheets into strips with tin snips. Use food containers, such as a soup can, to figure out your dimensions. A 10x17-inch piece makes a large lantern; a 4x10-inch strip makes a votive. Roll the strips into cylinders, using the food containers as molds. To secure, twist wire through the mesh at the top, middle, and bottom of the seams. Turn edges of wire to inside and trim excess. Spray surfaces with two coats of black paint; let dry between applications. Make the Halloween craft: Download our free pattern and cut out the cat shapes from black felt. Attach the shapes to a large piece of gold felt using fusible web or fabric glue to finish the tablecloth. Make the Halloween craft: Print the silhouettes below and trace onto the back side of vinyl or adhesive shelf liner. Cut out the shapes and adhere to the lanterns. Fill with moss, candles, and miniature gourds to finish. Make the Halloween craft: Begin by laying sheets of black construction paper side-by-side on the floor until you have enough to create the size of tree you want to make, then cut it out and tape together. Add paper animals for a truly spooky Halloween display. Make the Halloween craft: Mark even sections on a foam wreath using a ruler and a pencil. For each section, hot-glue the end of a long piece of yarn to the back of the wreath form and begin wrapping the section, alternating black yarn and white yarn. At the end of each section, cut the yarn and hot-glue its end to the back of the wreath. Add a purchased spider web decoration to the center of the wreath. Make the Halloween craft: Cover a rectangle wreath form in faux black feathers (look for a black feather boa at the crafts store) and attach with hot glue. Add a faux raven and hang the wreath with a few layered black and white ribbons. Make the Halloween craft: Round up an array of wooden birdhouses and coat them with glossy black and matte gray spray paint. Position your tiny town on a vibrant orange bench, and top the display with an eerie branch and mini pumpkins. Use adhesive to secure the spiders in place.
