10 Craft Ideas To Spook Up Your Home For Halloween
Whether you love an all out Halloween haven or prefer a simple nod to the spooky season, we’ve rounded up some family-friendly DIY projects to kit out your home in time for the 31st October.
For the bold Halloweener, why not put the nail in the coffin and create this statement string art skull from A Beautiful Mess. Weave white string between the nails to fill in the monochrome silhouette, swapping the skull design for a pumpkin, witch or wolf and full moon to suit your taste.
Make matching monochrome decor with a transfer cushion. Choose any Halloween phrasing of your choice (we like this ‘I’ll put a spell on you’ cushion from Eighteen25). Use iron on transfer paper to add your design to a cushion cover. You could also use a stencil with a preferred font and Tulip Fabric Paint to achieve a similar effect. Pompoms add a little extra pizzazz and can easily be made using a pompom maker.
Alternatively, hand-embroider a spider web onto an empty cushion cover, following pencil lines traced out in the desired pattern. Even without embroidery experience, you can easily achieve this low-key but aesthetic Halloween decor with a running stitch (line of evenly spaced stitches). You could also again use the Tulip Fabric Paint to trace over your initial design if preferred. And the best bit, once the holiday is over, you can fold away the cushion cover for another year and prep a new one for the next festive season – Christmas!
For book lovers, a great way to recycle old editions is to make these rustic pumpkins - a perfect country decoration all year round. Follow It’s Always Autumn’s guide to a simple rolled page pumpkin that can be spray painted to add to the effect, or attempt the slightly more advanced version by Sweetwater Bookshop (pictured). Cut a semi-circular design along all of the unbound edges of a thin book to create the pumpkin shape, gluing the front and back pages together to fan out the book. Spray paint if desired and add a small twig to the centre to create a stalk and complete your Halloween decor.
Plant lovers - why not embrace the spooky season by decorating your plant pots with a cute, ‘day of the dead’ style painting session. Use a white chalk paint to prime your pot before going wild with your colourful skull and flower decor, jazzing up your planters for the forthcoming year.
The novice crafter can also enjoy dusting off their creative cobwebs with this understated BOO banner from A Beautiful Mess. Cut black and white fabric to the size and shape of your chosen banner and stencil on the lettering in your favourite font or freehand design. Only the black fabric is cut, leaving the white backing to contrast.
If you don’t have a sewing machine, you can easily achieve the same effect by hand sewing the edges or using fabric glue to whip up this banner for your front door or wall. The monochrome design would go well with the earlier string art skull and pompom cushion if you fancy a matching theme throughout your home.
It’s easy to rustle up this chalkboard Halloween sign – you could write the wording on in chalk (white or coloured, totally the crafter’s prerogative), stick on white vinyl stickers, buy a purpose made letter board or even use a light box with black lettering.
If you’re hosting a Halloween party, try out spider beverages by serving faux spiders within ice cubes. Pre-freeze the ice cube spiders, dip the empty glass rims in honey, followed by black sugar to ensure it sets on the glass, fill with a drink of choice and add the eerie ice cubes last. It’s best to serve these drinks with a mini straw to avoid any choking hazards when the ice cubes melt. Alternatively, use acrylic paint to draw spiders onto the outside of the glasses before adding the black sugar rim.
For some floral, festive fun, attempt this all-out spider bonanza of a vase. Trace out a spider web pattern in marker pen on the empty vase, over which you can either glue string or trace the pattern with hot melt glue. Once set, paint over the vase and web with a matte or sparkly black paint (there’s nothing wrong with a bit of glitz and glamour at Halloween!). Accessorise with fake spiders and suitably glam flowers (real or artificial) in time for a Halloween feast.
Finally, for the all-out Halloweener, don’t forget to deck out the garden with this escaping skeleton (below). Whilst a little more effort is involved in sourcing the top half of a skeleton and some grave dirt (any soil will do), the effect is pretty eerie, particularly combined with some DIY cardboard gravestones (weather permitting)!
We hope you are feeling suitably inspired to try out some of these craft projects ready for the spookiest time of the year and would love you to share your creations with the us, so don’t forget to tag us in your Instagram crafting pictures @citygirlnetwork Happy crafting!
Written by Charlotte Bird