Ghoulish Ideas for Your Halloween Party

It’s that time of year again! Sure, Christmas is coming but what better holiday to get the seasonal party started than Halloween!

Honestly, Halloween is my favorite holiday because it’s got a lot going for it: the awesome colors and crisp feeling of fall, the sudden realization that pumpkin spice had been missing in your life up until now, and the thousand and one plus ways to have fun with spooky decorations, costumes, treats, and games for all!

With October just around the corner, your calendar is bound to start filling up with costume parties, dance parties, ward parties, and much more to get you into the Halloween spirit. So here are a few Halloween craft ideas I’ve compiled that will help your party planning be cheap, easy, and filled with creativity!

Orbs

More specifically, yarn orbs. This craft is a simple act that yields many possibilities. Below I’ve provided three pictures for three different types of Halloween yarn orb decorations. See one you like? Look at the caption title and click here to visit their respective sites: Pumpkins, Spider Webs, Jack Skellington. The first photo (Pumpkins) links to a site called One Little Project run by Debbie Chapman. I’ve found her tutorial be the quickest process with detailed instructions and great pictures to aid.

In my research I decided to give her craft a try myself, and aside from some sticky fingers, it worked out great! I did change one thing, however, and decided to mix in a bit of glow-in-the-dark paint with the glue, and it worked beautifully on our white string but so-so on the colored string. All-in-all, this is a craft that I’m likely to try again, possibly even at Christmas time to make a snowman! To be continued…

Bats

A swarm of bat cutouts are on the wall above a real pumpkin which is in the bottom left of the image
photo cred from 2.bp.blogspot.com

Our next craft is right at the top of the quick, cheap, and easy ideas list. Bats. These little babies can come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and all it takes is black construction paper or card stock, scissors, and a printer to print out the template for you to trace. Then it’s up to you to find a good home for them whether it be a swarm of bats swirling across your walls, or perhaps you decided to hang them upside down from your trees outside.

Once again, you can go as far as your imagination takes you in this craft. Here’s a link to the website Made Everyday with Dana. She has a great step by step tutorial and also has a fantastic template you could use. But if you don’t like just one kind of bat in your swarm, here are a couple links to other templates you could use: Template 1, Template 2, and here is a link to a whole new kind of bat made out of egg cartons!

Ghosts

Ghosts are probably one of the most common, creative, and versatile characters for Halloween decorations. The crafts in this section are many, so here are a few I narrowed it down to based on level of ease: starting with what’s most easily accessible with home items and progressing upwards to what might take a little more work. Be sure to click on the links for step by step tutorials on making these crafts so you can get started!

milk jugs

Milk Jug Ghosties: These guys are cute and fun for the whole family to get involved in. Fill them with Christmas lights and line them up in a row or use battery-powered candles from the dollar store to spread them out!

 

 

mini ghosts

Mini Cheesecloth Hanging Ghosts: These little cuties are miniature sized ghosts covered in stiffened cheesecloth. With minimal supplies and a good place to hang them from, you’re likely to have a ghost filled house once the family gets involved in the fun. (To do a much larger sized version of this, click here for the tutorial from Ashley Phillips’ website Simply Designing)

ping pong ghosts

Pig-Pong Ball Ghost Lights: Put those white Christmas lights of yours to good use and light up your porch with some ping-pong ball ghosties that are equally adorable and ghastly.

 

 

Windsock ghosts

Ghostly windsock: These tin-made ghouls are easy to make and at a reasonable price. Spice up your garden or pumpkin patch with a few of these Caspers hanging around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Large sized cheesecloth ghost

Large-Scale Cheesecloth Freestanding Ghosts: The larger you want them, the more cheesecloth you’ll need. These can be anything from that awesome dinner table centerpiece to the visitor hanging outside your front door. With a bit of extra work and patience, you could have an awesome and possibly glowing ghost ready to greet those Trick-or-Treaters.

Lights

For our last section we will work on lights. Now I’ve already mentioned a couple of things above that involve lights such as our ping-pong ball ghosts and our ghostly milk jugs. However, here are a few neat crafts that could spice things up by using more of a candle-stick vibe. The options are endless beyond the three crafts I’ve got posted here, and you only need to do a bit more research to find other variations of these crafts that might better suit your liking. With that note in mind, here are my top three lighting crafts that you are bound to like!

Floating witch-hat lights

Witch Hats: These fun lights are witch hats strung up with lights. Hang them above your front porch or in your living room. They’re definitely unique and easy to make. So grab your broom and get started!

 

 

 

Skull candles

Scull Candles: These take a bit of work, but are definitely worth it for the coolness factor. Most of the supplies can be found at the dollar store and at home, so get started soon and you can have these light up the dinner table at your next Halloween party.

 

 

Spooky candles

Candle light Collection: This creepy tower of candle lights is extremely easy to build with paper towel tubes, lots of glue, paint, and dollar store lights. Feel free to melt some crayons onto the drip marks to add a bit of terrifying color to this homemade Tower-of-Terror.

 

 

 

 

There you have it! These are just a few of the ghoulish craft ideas that are out there. I hope you have found these as interesting and exciting as I have! I’m hoping to try a few more of these myself so I can have more in my house to complement my pumpkin and spiderweb yarn orbs. And based on how successful my glow-in-the-dark paint did on my spiderweb orb, I’m likely to use some more of it on my cheesecloth ghosts and my wax-dripping candles!

Please comment below if you try any of these crafts and tell us how the experience went for you. Also, let me know of any ideas or other suggestions you might have to add to this ghoulish list. I’m always interested in how to make my home and yard more terrifying during the month of October. Happy Halloween!

Camille Beecroft is a senior at Utah Valley University Studying English with an emphasis in Writing Studies. She loves to speak and learn different languages, always searches for ways to satisfy her wanderlust and connect with people, and compulsively buys/watches movies when she gets stressed.