Homemade Halloween Decorations – DIY and Cheap

Halloween is so much fun to decorate for. Whether you like making your house super spooky or you like keeping it cute and rustic, there are so many ways to add a little pop of Halloween to your home. I love setting up my mantle every year along with spooky and fun accents in every room. Usually, I add one or two new decorations to my collection each year and I have so much fun shopping for them, but this year I decided to make them instead! Below I’ll walk you through what I made, I hope it inspires you to create something fun for your own home! 🛍️ This post contains affiliate links– thank you for supporting us.

Halloween Window Silhouette

This is such an easy project. You literally just need cardboard and black paint. I just free-hand drew the outline of a witch on the cardboard and cut it out, you could project an outline to trace if you have a projector or even trace around your child in a fun position! Get creative! I drew a witch, but you can do any silhouette that is Halloween themed. Try a stack of jack-o-lanterns and cut out their eyes and mouths, or cauldron, ghost or skeleton! *TIP: This knife – the CANARY Corrugated Cardboard Cutter -makes cutting cardboard SO MUCH EASIER!

Then I painted the whole cut-out black. Once dry, all you have to do is fix the silhouette to your window – I used clear packaging tape. When it’s dark outside, any light from behind the silhouette will make it stand out in your window.

Painted Fence Picket Signs and Decorations

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My second project for this year were these Painted Fence Pickets – a set that says Welcome and Happy Halloween for outside my door and a smaller set painted as ghosts for my mantle. First, you will need wooden fence pickets. We went to our local hardware store and bought 3 cedar pickets that are 5 feet tall. They cost about $1.60 each making this a really cheap project! I left two of them their original size for the front door signs and cut one into 3 different, but smaller, sizes for the ghosts with a miter saw. Use whatever saw you have and are comfortable using. If you have sandpaper, you can sand them a bit to get rid of the rough edges.

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Next you’ll need stencils and paint brushes/sponges. I bought stencils from Joann Fabric, but you can find some that say Trick or Treat on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2qi9xt9. You’ll also need paint. Pretty much any acrylic or house paint will work fine, I used KILZ brand interior chalk paint that I got free samples of in small pots. I used black, orange, white and some of the kids (we let each of our daughters make their own – they LOVED it and are already asking if we can do it again for Christmas) used green and blue.

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Once you have all of your supplies, choose the colors you want to use and paint the pickets all over the front and sides. I painted my welcome signs black and the ghosts white. Let those dry. Have some wine, dinner, watch a movie! You could even make it a paint party with your friends or neighbors. Then come back to the dry pickets and get to stenciling! Lay the stencil on the picket. With the stencils that took more than one sheet, I traced them with a pencil onto my picket to make sure they would fit first. To stencil, you want to make sure to press the brush/sponge up and down instead of brushing it back and forth. That way the paint doesn’t get under the edges of the stencil. It can also help to have someone hold all the edges of the stencil for you so they stay flat again the wood. Remove the stencil and you’re done!

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For the ghosts, I hand painted the faces with black paint. I didn’t do much research or stencil those, I just drew them with a pencil first, then filled in with a paintbrush. And that’s it! Super easy. I let everything dry and placed them in my house. So far the signs outside have held up to a few minor rain storms without any issues, but I may seal them with a clear outdoor sealer eventually.

Similar Jack-O-Lantern Pillow Covers: https://amzn.to/31lrqnu
Black and white Pillow Covers: https://amzn.to/2oM9YLT

A few tips:

If you are going to reuse the stencils, make sure there is no paint underneath them when you lay it back down on the board after the first time you use it.

You may need a few coats of paint depending on how thick your paint is and how light of a color you are putting over a dark background color. I used one coat of paint, but filled in a few small areas of the orange after it dried with a paintbrush.