Spooky DIY Halloween Decorations

Halloween is extra-fun for trick-or-treaters that knock on your door when your house and yard are all decked out. Even if you only have a few minutes and limited crafting ability, here are five easy Halloween decorations that will make your house the spookiest on the block. Boo! (featured image via The Graphics Fairy)

1) Glowing Eyes in the Bushes: Cut some eye-shaped holes in a cardboard toilet paper or paper towel tube and insert a glowstick. Position the tubes around the yard in the bushes – spooky!

2) Tree Spirits: Cut a white sheet into large rectangles. Place a white styrofoam ball in the center, gather up the sheet fabric under the ball and tie it off with some white twine or dental floss. Cut the hanging edges of the fabric to look jagged and hang the balls from the trees in your yard.

3) Glowing Pumpkins: Spray pumpkins with glow-in-the-dark spray paint and scatter them throughout the yard or line your driveway with them.

4) Ghost Topiaries: Cut a hole in the bottom of empty plastic milk jugs (the non-colored kind). Use a black marker to paint a ghost face (2 circles for eyes, one for a mouth) on the front of each. String a set of large-bulb Christmas lights along the sidewalk and place the hole in the bottom of a milk jug over each one so it glows from the inside. A ghostly way to light the path to the door!

5) Mummy Pumpkin: Wrap a pumpkin with rolled gauze (use small dabs of hot glue to hold it in place). Glue on some googly eyes from the craft store (tuck them a bit under the gauze for full effect!) and use a Sharpie to draw on a small mouth.

Julianne Puckett is the creator of Yankee Kitchen Ninja, a blog about what she calls “stealthy homemaking” — healthy recipes that are quick and easy to prepare, DIY gardening tips and the occasional craft project. A designer, writer and former suburban-dwelling IT professional, she lives in rural Vermont, where she struggles to balance the siren call of her inner farmer with her love of cute shoes and cocktails.