From activities little ones will love to do at your Halloween bash to spooky crafts you and your kids can make together, we have great projects that require few materials but guarantee lots of fun!
Character Treat Bags
Need a supersimple kids’ party craft? Make these treat bags the kids can take home after the party. Give the children a lunch-size sack in white, black, or orange, and let them use their imagination to create a skeleton-, bat-, spider-, or pumpkin-theme bag using paper cutouts, paint markers, googly eyes, chenille stems, and other crafts supplies. When kids have finished decorating their bags, fold and trim the tops of the bags with decorative-edge scissors. Punch two holes in the folded top and secure the folds by threading ribbon through the holes. Let kids choose a Halloween sticker saying to add the front of their bags.
Yarn-Wrapped Spider
If you’re looking for an easy project to craft at school or a home party, this creepy-crawly fellow will fit the bill. Wrap a 2-inch-diameter plastic foam ball with black yarn; secure the end with hot-melt glue. Coil eight black chenille stems around a pencil. Add a black pony bead to one end of each curled chenille stem and poke the opposite end of each stem between the yarn strands and into the ball. Finish the spider with googly eyes and a red bead nose.
Masked Marvels
Masks are always a hit with kids, and purchased masquerade masks from crafts stores are great blank canvases for creating a variety of characters. From top left: Spray-paint a mask black and add patterned-paper whiskers and ears and a pom-pom nose for a simple cat. Spray-paint a mask with olive-color paint, add red dimensional paint squiggles, glue on googly eyes, and attach curled chenille stems for an instant alien. Or, spray-paint a mask purple, and add crafts foam wings, self-stick gems, and neon-yellow dimensional paint details for a bejeweled bat.
Mini Mummy
This merry mummy will have your kids wrapped up in laughter. Help them make their own character by securing a bouncy ball to the end of a crafts stick with tape. Fold one end of a neon-yellow chenille stem back and forth in small increments to make fingers; wrap the other end around the stick. Repeat for the other arm. Wrap the entire ball and stick with 2-inch-wide first aid gauze that has been cut in half lengthwise; tuck the end into the back of the body. Complete the look by gluing googly eyes between the head layers.
Frankenstein Noisemaker
The funny face and rattling sound of this Frankenstein noisemaker are sure to scare away everything that goes bump on Halloween night. Adults can prep the plates by punching the holes around the edges and cutting a hole in the bottom for the dowel. Kids will have a blast putting noisemaker filler inside and decorating the outside with dimensional paint and cutout facial features. See the download for detailed instructions.
Haunted House Luminary
Dig into the recycling bin and pull out an empty juice carton to make this happy haunted house centerpiece. Kids can cover up the carton sides with black crafts foam and create a roof by covering the carton top with strips of scalloped-edge glitter sticker paper. Adults should cut out the windows and door using a crafts knife, but kids can help decorate the house with cutout crafts foam shutters and chimney and a collection of wired crafts foam bats. Insert a kids-safe, battery-operated tea-light candle and illuminate the finished creation as shown here.
Haunted Forest Centerpiece
Black licorice, threaded with wire and shaped to make a forest of spindly trees, makes this creative nonedible Halloween table topper. Snip off the ends of six pieces of black licorice and push heavy-gauge wire through the holes of each piece. Holding the pieces together in the middle, bend the ends to form a tree trunk. Bend the opposite ends to form gnarled tree branches and wrap black wire around the center of the pieces to hold it all together. Repeat for each tree. Place each tree atop a chocolate-frosted graham cracker, add a candy-corn fence, and arrange mini artificial pumpkins under the trees to complete the landscape.
