Our favorite Halloween craft ideas for kids include fun and spooky ways to create spiders, bats, Jack-O’-lanterns, pumpkins, & more. Get creative as you celebrate and decorate for Halloween as a family!
Updated September 2024
There are some art activities and craft projects that are just perfect for Halloween. And there are some art activities that are great anytime but that lend themselves especially well to seasonal and holiday art. This round up of ideas contains both kinds of activities.
Many of these are activities that we have done again and again over the years with our families, friends, and art classes and groups.
13 Awesome Halloween Craft Ideas for Kids
1. Pumpkin Decorating (of course!)
You can decorate pumpkins using process art techniques, paint your pumpkins, or try these fun decorating ideas. It’ll get you into the Halloween spirit, and you’ll have great Halloween decorations all month long.
2. Halloween Scrape Painting
Try your hand at this fun painting activity making the rounds on social media these days. You’ll be amazed at how easy this is, and we love this Halloween twist!
3. Fingerprint Halloween Art
Press your finger or thumb to a stamp pad, then to paper, to create fingerprints in any color. Then add details with a pen to turn your fingerprints into spiders, bats, Jack-o’-lanterns, witches, ghosts, cats, or anything you like!
Note: Ed Emberley’s Complete Funprint Drawing Book is the one that started it all for us. Highly recommended!
4. Watercolor Resist Halloween Designs
Simply draw any Halloween image (spiderwebs, pumpkins, ghosts, cats, anything!) with oil pastels or crayons, then paint over the drawing with watercolor paint. If you’re creating a night sky effect with dark watercolor paint (blue, purple, black), sprinkle salt on the still-wet watercolors to create a starry night sky effect.
5. Glue Resist Halloween Art
Use a bottle of squeeze glue to “draw” a Halloween picture such as pumpkins, Jack-o’-lanterns, or spiderwebs. And then paint the whole thing with watercolor paint once the glue has dried.
6. Halloween Raised Salt Painting
Raised salt painting is an all-time kid favorite. You can do it on black cardstock to make it extra Halloween-y, but it is also great on a white background. Again, use Halloween images to turn this perennial favorite into a Halloween art activity.
7. Jack-O’-Lantern Suncatchers
Use orange and yellow tissue paper to make a Halloween suncatcher on transparent contact paper. Don’t forget to add a Jack-o’-lantern face out of black construction paper! A paper plate with the center cut out frames the whole thing nicely and is fun to decorate.
Or make a melted bead Jack-o’-lantern suncatcher for something more permanent.
8. Coffee Filter Spiderwebs
These spiderwebs are so fun to make and they make great decorations for Halloween, whether grouped in a window as we do it, or on a wall or collaged onto an artwork. Add little spiders cut out of black construction paper and you’re good to go!
9. Black Glue Resist Halloween Art
Black glue resist spiderwebs are our new favorite Halloween art project! Use black liquid glue to draw Halloween designs and then paint with watercolors to make spooky stained glass.
10. Tape Skeletons
You can do this on a small scale by tracing a stuffed animal or doll first, then adding the tape skeleton. Or you can do it on a real-life scale by tracing your own body. To turn your tape skeleton into tape-resist, simply paint over the tape skeleton artwork with black (or any color paint), then peel away the tape.
11. Halloween Paper Chains
You can make Halloween paper chains the same way you would make a paper doll chain, but instead of cutting out a person, you cut out ghosts, bats, pumpkins, cats, etc. For a longer lasting chain, you can use felt instead of paper.
12. Marble Painted Spiderwebs
Use the super fun action art activity of painting with marbles to make your own spiderweb art. Try white or silver paint on top of black construction paper then glue on your own paper spiders.
13. Halloween Pointillism with Cotton Swabs
Try this Artful Parent classic with Halloween colors (black, orange, and white) and see what designs you can come up with! We especially love white paint on back paper.
Aren’t those some great Halloween craft ideas for kids and families?
More Halloween Craft Ideas for Kids
Want even more Halloween fun?
Check out our Halloween Creativity Pack!
This 45-page printable eBook is full of seasonal coloring pages, drawing prompts, games, and art projects.
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