Halloween Craft Ideas for Kids

Kids love Halloween – and they love being part of what makes the day special. How about scaring up some fun for your little one with a few fabulous children’s Halloween crafts? Here are three great Halloween craft ideas to get you started.

Milk Carton Trick or Treat Candy Holder

This idea is so simple…and so easy to personalize and have fun with. And it’s a somewhat sturdier (not to mention more original) idea than the standard paper trick-or-treat bag. Let your little one go wild with her imagination to create a grinning pumpkin, a spooky vampire bat or a kooky witch – anything your youngster associates with Halloween and a chillingly good time.

You Will Need:

• a ½ gallon cardboard milk carton, emptied
• construction paper in the color or colors you wish (orange and black for a jack-o-lantern; green for Frankenstein; etc.)
• a pencil
• scissors
• glue or tape
• yarn
• stapler with staples

Wash out the inside of the milk carton well and allow to dry thoroughly. Cut the top off the carton so that you have a rectangular shape all around.

Using your pencil, trace the shapes you’ll need in order to create the creature of your child’s choice onto the construction paper. Here’s an example: for a vampire bat, draw one bat wing for each side of the carton. Cut out and paste shapes for the eyes and pointy teeth over a piece of construction paper covering the front of the carton. Or for a jack-o-lantern, cut out a rectangular piece of orange construction paper to cover the outside of the carton, then cut out black or yellow shapes for the eyes, nose and mouth. Glue all pieces as needed.

Allow the glue to dry completely. For pieces that stick out from the container – such as the bat’s wings – reinforce by stapling. Now take a length of yarn and staple one end at the top of the front of the carton and one at the top of the back to create a handle. You’re done!

Handprint Harvest Festival Wreath

This project is perfect for celebrating autumn, and your youngster can show off his “handiwork” by hanging it on the front door to your home.

You Will Need:

• enough construction paper to cut out a minimum of nine hands, in an assortment of autumn colors (red, orange, yellow, brown)
• scissors
• glue
• anything your child would like to decorate the wreath with: acorns and other natural autumn growth you have around your yard or neighborhood; Halloween-theme stick-on pieces; small faux autumn flowers or mini-pumpkins; etc.
• a pencil
• yarn

Trace one of your child’s hands on a piece of construction paper. Using this cutout as your guide, trace as many more handprints as needed onto the rest of the pieces of paper. Cut each out.

Glue the hands together in a wreath shape, each hand facing the same way. Have the hands overlap one another slightly. Glue or stick the decorations onto the front of the wreath.

Cut a length of yarn and glue each end of it to the top of the back of the wreath. Dry completely, then hang on a decoration hook or hanger on your front door.

The House on Haunted Hill

Want to haunt your house in a hurry – and in a way that will amuse and amaze rather than frighten little trick-or-treaters away? Then haunt your house with this fun jack-o-lantern cutout image. You’ll tape it behind one or more of the windows of your home and shine a light behind it for an eerie yet cheerie glow. Here’s how.

You Will Need

• one or more windows at a visible spot in your house (the front, if the front of your house faces the street, for example), with good lighting in the room behind it
• enough pieces of black construction paper to entirely cover the back of all the panes in the window
• orange or yellow tissue paper
• pencil
• scissors
• glue
• tape (double-sided and removable is preferable)

Hold pieces of the construction paper up to your window panes to determine how large each piece will need to be. Lightly trace the outlines as needed. Cut out each shape to fit into the windowpanes.

Now cut shapes into the construction paper. One of the hottest “haunted window” ideas this Halloween is to make a giant jack-o-lantern by, for example, using a four-pane window and cutting one eye out in each of the top two pane construction paper panels, plus half a nose; then for the bottom two panels, cutting out half a mouth (horizontally) on each. The effect, when viewed from the street, is of a big jack-o-lantern’s face peering out from behind the glass.

If your child is older and/or the artistic type, she can choose instead to create a Halloween scene, with a crescent moon in one pane, a mini graveyard in the one below, etc.

When you have your shapes cut out, glue the tissue paper to the back so all the shapes are covered with the tissue paper. Allow the glue to dry and hang in your window panes with the double-sided tape.

You and your little one will have a scary good time with these awesome Halloween craft ideas. Have fun!