13 mischievous Halloween crafts to do with your kids

Lesson of origami. creativity. Hands of kids.
Photo Credit: Anastasiia Boriagina/Getty Images

Next to candy, our favorite part of Halloween is the abundance of super-fun crafts. If you want cute, we’ve got it. If you’re looking for scary, no problem. Crafts that are simple, inexpensive, and perfect to do with kiddos? Check, check, check. Take a look through these 13 mischievous Halloween crafts to do with your kids and pick your favorites. Heck, do them all! Your home will be Halloween-ready in no time!

Yarn pumpkins

These yarn pumpkins from One Little Project are adorable. They do take a bit of time to make, however, so if you need your craft display-ready today, this isn’t the one. If you do have a bit of time — say, oh, 24 hours for them to dry — then you’ll have a unique pumpkin decoration that will have everyone asking, “How’d you do that?”

We love budget-friendly crafts and this is one of them. You can find everything you need for this craft at the dollar store. Choose some Halloween colored yarn (orange and yellow are perfect, but red seems to work better if you’re making apples), good old-fashioned white glue, green and brown pipe cleaner, and small balloons. Now you’re ready to get busy!

This project starts with wrapping glue-soaked yarn around a small balloon. You’d think playing with glue would be a little kid’s dream. However, since this project takes a bit of time and patience, your littlest helpers may disappear on you mid-creation. Older kiddos, however, should be able to hang in there for the whole process. If you’re lucky, they’ll also help with cutting the yarn and blowing up the balloons.

Once you’ve allowed these to dry overnight and carefully remove the balloon, you’re ready to add the finishing touches and begin displaying them. Grouped as a centerpiece, resting on a mantle or hanging out on shelves and end tables, these pumpkins are a perfect addition to your Halloween decor. Best thing? They won’t rot, so you can enjoy them all fall.

Photo Credit: One Little Project

Pinecone spider

This pinecone spider from Fireflies and Mudpies will be the one spider in your home you won’t want to catch and flush down the toilet. Or, is that just us? Anyway, for a craft that brings a little bit of nature into your home, and just not the living kind, this pinecone spider is just the thing.

Grab the kids and start with a nature walk to find the perfect little pinecone for your spiders’ bodies. Making more than one? Different size pinecones can make for a little spider family: think dad, mom and kids. Some brown pipe cleaners for legs, googly eyes of different shapes and sizes, scissors and glue are all you’ll need to begin creating your little eight-legged friends.

Little hands can wrap the pipe cleaners around their spider themselves and shape them into legs. Each crafter can get creative with how many eyes their spider has since different spiders have different numbers of eyes. Two? Six? Eight? There are no rules for these pinecone spiders except to have fun making them.

This craft is ideal for preschools, classrooms or just a fun weekend activity at home with your own little artists. Placed here and there around your home, on shelves and tables, basking in the sun on your window sill, or hanging from fake spider webs, you’ll actually be okay having these cuties hanging around your house. Just be sure to check your bed before climbing in if you’ve got pranksters living with you: not even these guys would be welcome there!

Photo Credit: Fireflies & Mud Pies

Popsicle stick haunted house

Popsicle sticks have been a fixture in the world of kids crafts since the beginning of time — or, at least the beginning of popsicles. You could do nothing but popsicle stick crafts for the rest of your life and never get through all of them. Maybe you can tell we’re fans? It was easy to fall in love with this totally fun popsicle stick haunted house craft from Happily Everly After, and we think you’ll love it, too.

Don’t skimp on the popsicle sticks here: you’re gonna needs lots of them. Choose the stick size based on how small or large you want your house to be. Haunted cabin or haunted mansion? Equally fun and spooky. Maybe toss in a few of different sized popsicle sticks for adding windows and doors to your haunted house. A hot glue gun, good pair of scissors and a variety of paint colors and you’re ready to begin construction.

Glueing the sticks together to make the roof and walls is the most time consuming part of this project so you may begin this project with helpers only to have them ditch you mid-way through. That’s okay because they’ll be back when it’s time to assemble the house and decorate. That’s when it gets really fun. Paint your building spooky colors (blacks and greys), add stickers or pictures of spiders, bats, or ghosts — maybe glue Halloween themed toys to your house. The design is only limited by your imagination.

You can leave it freestanding, or glue it to a piece of cardboard and create spooky surroundings for your haunted house. Dead grass, headstones, trees with no leaves, black crows — go all out on truly making this a house we would never want to visit. No offense!

Photo Credit: Happily Ever After

Tea light pumpkins

Hands down, these tea light pumpkins from Smart School House will be the easiest (yet still adorable and fun) Halloween pumpkins you’ve ever made. They are also super budget friendly — as long as you practice self control and don’t add lots of other fun Halloween goodies to your shopping cart when you’re out gathering supplies!

If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to find flameless, pumpkin tea lights at Walmart or the dollar store. If not, Amazon to the rescue! Add in a some small popsicle sticks, green pipe cleaners, and black adhesive gems, rhinestones or something similar, and it’s pumpkin creating time!

Gather your kids, your neighbors and their kids, your kids’ friends — this is an ideal project for lots of little participants. They will love decorating their pumpkins with the gemstones, adding the spiral pumpkin leaf and turning them on. No carving, no icky pumpkin guts, no mess. Just tons of fun.

These are terific little Halloween trinkets to give away to neighbors, friends, teachers, the mail carrier, UPS delivery person. They are so cute you’ll want to share them with everyone! Speaking of teachers, how great would these be as a class activity? Pretty darn great is the correct answer.

Don’t forget to save several for yourself since they are adorable lined up along a shelf or windowsill, adding a festive touch to your decor while lighting up the night.

Photo Credit: Smart School House

Paper bag monster puppets

Did you buy the bulk supply of brown lunch bags and just don’t know what to do with them? Aside from sending lunches to school with your kids, of course. Lucky you: we’ve got just the thing! These paper bag monster puppets from I Heart Crafty Things will repurpose those lunch bags into a fun craft the whole family can do together. Your kids will love these so much you just might end up hosting round two for them and their friends.

Clear a table, gather your supplies and get ready for some creating fun. A variety of bright colored paints provides the beginning to creating some unique monsters. Once the bags have been painted front and back and have dried completely, it’s time to let imaginations run wild. A monster with polka dots? Absolutely. Seven arms? Sure. Horns, one giant eyeball, fangs, freckles? Go a little crazy with your monster’s design.

Have handy a supply of card stock of different colors, construction paper, yarns, markers or any thing else you can think of that can be used to make these monsters. Prizes could be awarded to the scariest, funniest, silliest or best use of googly eyes.

Once your monsters are finished, it’s time for them to perform. Set up a table with a black tablecloth to hide behind and get ready because it’s monster puppet showtime!

Photo Credit: I Heart Crafty Things

Black cat sock craft

It just wouldn’t be Halloween without a black cat or two. The best thing about these spooky black sock cats from Home Talk, is that they are not bad luck, so you’ll be okay with them hanging around at Halloween. They are as adorable as they are spooky, if that’s possible.

Start by raiding the sock drawers in your house for all the socks that have somehow lost their mate. If they are black socks, you’re already ahead of the game. If not, use some black fabric dye to get them spooky cat-ready. Once the black sock supply is ready, kids can assist with cutting the socks and stuffing them. Bonus points if they are old enough to sew the heads closed! If not, they can stick around while adults or bigger kids get this done (and maybe learn for next year) because they will definitely want to get in on the decorating.

If you’re like us, you save all of the extra buttons that come with new shirts and blouses. Time to haul that button supply out so your cats have eyes. Mix and match colors, sizes, and shapes of eyes to give your cat a spooky, slightly crazed look. It is Halloween after all. Add a felt nose of any color and style and perhaps a ribbon around its neck. If you find ribbon with skeletons, pumpkins, ghosts or spiders, bonus! Finally, since we’ve never seen a whiskerless cat, add some whiskers with white thread or even a thin, white felt pen.

These easy-to-make spooky black cats will keep you company — or give you nightmares — throughout the Halloween season.

Photo Credit: Home Talk

Want more? Check out these other Halloween crafts!
Mummy mason jar craft
Spider web art
DIY bat corner bookmarks
Paper plate witch craft
Puffy ghosts
Yarn wrapped mummy craft
Halloween slime

You can’t do Halloween crafts without some pumpkin snacks! Find out which ones are the best this season.