25 DIY Halloween Decorations You'll Love

Quick wins under 5 minutes

1. Tin-foil ghost eyes in the bushes — crumple foil into eye shapes and tuck them into hedges. Headlights catch them at night. Terrifying.
2. Trash-bag spider web covering the front door.
3. Cheesecloth ghosts draped over lamps.
4. Silhouettes in windows — black paper cats, witches, bats.
5. Battery-powered candles in every window.

Weekend projects

6. Front-porch graveyard with foam headstones and dollar-store fog machine.
7. Floating candles with LED tealights and fishing line.
8. "Bloody" handprints on the front window (washable red paint).
9. Life-size grim reaper — a broomstick, a hooded robe, and a plastic scythe.
10. Mason jar spirits — glow sticks + tissue paper "ghosts" sealed inside.

Under $10 tricks

Every one of these came in under a tenner at the dollar store:

• Ping-pong ball eyeballs with drawn-on veins in a punch bowl.
• Trash bag Halloween lawn — 30-gallon bags stuffed with leaves, tied at the neck, and given a jack-o'-lantern face.
• Cheesecloth curtains dip-dyed in tea, hung over doorways.
• Frozen "bloody" ice cubes for the punch bowl (red juice + a lychee eyeball).

Kid-safe crafts

• Toilet-paper-roll mummies with googly eyes.
• Paper-plate spiders with pipe-cleaner legs.
• Handprint bats on the fridge.
• Egg-carton spiders in the entryway.

The one that always wins

A hidden speaker on the porch playing very quiet, distant footsteps. Guests will hear it before they see it, and then they'll never see it. The best decoration is the one people can't quite find.