5 Cheap and Easy to Make Indoor Halloween Decorations

Guest Post By: Laura Smith

Is there anything better than browsing through the Halloween stores during the fall and looking at all of the extravagant dummies, props, and special effects that you can buy to turn your home into the ultimate Halloween domain? It’s all well and good until you see the price of most of these items. Then, you leave the store empty-handed because you still need to eat and pay bills. Luckily, there are alternative ways to make your home look nice and creepy for Halloween. Here are some cheap and easy indoor Halloween decorations that you can make for little to no cost.

1. Melted Candles

Sure, you could just buy candles at any store and burn them year round, but these are a safer option, and they give off a more Halloween feel. They also cost pennies to make.  Just be sure to start saving your paper towel tubes ahead of time.

Materials:

• Paper towel tubes
• Wax paper
• Tape or Elmer’s glue.
• Hot glue
• Acrylic paint (your choice of colors)
• Paint brushes
• Battery operated tea light candles
• Pebbles, coins, or any small weight

Directions:

Cover each paper towel tube with wax paper.  Tape or glue the ends together. Cut round pieces of wax paper and glue or tape them to the top and bottom of the paper towel tube. Don’t forget to slide some small pebbles, coins, or any small weight inside the paper towel tube before sealing the ends. This will keep them from easily tipping over once they are displayed.

Using a hot glue gun, make runny streaks of glue vertically around one end of the paper towel tube to simulate dripping wax. Make each streak a few inches long, running down the circumference of one end of the tube. Let it dry all the way.

Paint the tube any color you wish. You may need several coats to cover the wax paper. Paint the dried hot glue streaks as well.

Display the finished candles “wax side” up. Place battery operated tea lights on top of the candles. Turn them on at night to create a ghostly ambiance, or glue them to the top of the candle if you don’t plan to light them. 

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2. Window Silhouettes

Everyone grew up hanging window clings or even cardboard pictures of black cats and jack-o-lanterns on their doors, walls, and windows, but the window clings lose their grip after just a few applications, and the cardboard pictures fall down easily and block the daylight from your windows. Here’s a better alternative that I prefer for my window decorations.

Materials

• Black cardstock paper
• Printed silhouette images found online
• Pencils or white crayons/colored pencils
• Box cutter
• Scissors

Directions

Look online for different Halloween-themed shapes. Print out the ones you like best. They could be jack-o-lantern patterns, simple Halloween shapes, or even creepy landscapes.

Cut out a printed pattern. Then, tape it to the black cardstock paper. Use a box cutter to cut out details inside the pattern, such as windows of a haunted house, round eyes for ghosts, or the sharp teeth of a monster.

 Trace around the outline of the pattern using a pencil or a white crayon or colored pencil. Then, cut out the shape with scissors and the box cutter.

Tape the finished product to your windows. They’re eye-catching without blocking out the daylight or losing their cling. Save them to display year after year, or scrap them and make new ones each year.

3. Halloween Jar

If you’re looking for a cute tabletop decoration that you can make yourself, try a Halloween jar. You can make a few for your end tables or a whole bunch to give away to family and friends who share your Halloween obsession.

Materials

• A mason jar (I suggest plastic over glass)
• Halloween-themed dollar store items – little plastic toys that you’d find in a goodie bag (spiders, skull rings, orange and black beads, etc.)
• Halloween-themed ribbon
• Halloween stickers

Directions

Fill the mason jar with the dollar store items. Fill it to the top, but make sure you can close the lid.

Glue ribbon around the rim of the jar lid.

Decorate the outside with stickers, paint, or whatever else you can think of.

Suggested Post: Fall 2019 Home Decor Trends

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4. Halloween Wreath

There are so many cute wreath ideas on Pinterest, in craft magazines, and even on neighborhood doors. Halloween wreaths can be costly, though, even if you make them yourself. I opted for a cheaper option when designing the wreath that I hang on my door, and I’m pretty happy with the results. Here’s how I did it.

Materials

• A wreath-shaped piece of foam (found at a dollar or craft store)
• Sewing pins
• Halloween ribbon. Buy a lot of it if you’re planning on making a standard-sized wreath, at least four spools or so. Also, buy at least one pattern that’s different from the others so that you can make a bow that stands out from the rest of the wreath.
• Halloween-themed decorations (whatever you see at the dollar store, craft store, etc.)
• Hot glue
• String or yarn (optional for hanging)

Directions

Cover the foam wreath in the ribbon of your choice. I suggest wrapping it around the foam from the inside out. Pin it down as you go. This will keep it from unraveling as you wind the ribbon. You can also easily adjust the ribbon to cover any pieces of foam that may stick out by taking out the pin rather than trying to rip off dried glue or adding sloppy layers to the piece.

Hot glue your decorations to the front of the wreath. I used mainly plastic spiders and skulls that you can find at the dollar store for $1 per pack.

Tie a bow out of ribbon, and glue it to the bottom of the wreath.

Add a loop of string to the back of the wreath to make for easy display, or if the foam is thin enough to hang on a nail or wreath hanger, skip the string, and you’re good to go.

5. Great Pumpkin Sign

After I bought a screen door for my house, I was left with a flat, giant cardboard box which, to me, was an invitation to do some painting. With Halloween just around the corner, I decided to make a Halloween- themed image. The first thing that came to mind was Linus sitting in the pumpkin patch, waiting for The Great Pumpkin. So, I pulled up an image online and went with it.

Materials

• A giant piece of cardboard
• Acrylic paint
• Paintbrushes
• Water
• Paper towels
• A Halloween-themed image

Directions

Cut out a giant square from a large box. Leave on the folded corner of the side of the box to make the piece easier to stand up on its own.

Place the cardboard flat on the ground, and sketch out your design. Remember that you have a lot of space to work with so make sure to scale your image to fill that space.

Use paint to color in the image. Use one color at a time, and let one section dry before painting another color right next to it.

Display in your house as a photo op at your Halloween party, or even set it outside on Halloween for the trick-or-treaters to see as they collect their candy.

Bio

Laura Smith is a middle-grade author, blogger, and freelance writer from Pittsburgh, PA. Her articles have appeared on the websites List25, Ok Whatever, ProWriting Aid, and Listosaur. She loves to write about books, movies, share personal stories, and provide writing advice. You can read more about her and her work on her blog at https://laurasbooksandblogs.com.