Halloween Crafts for Kids: 3 Ideas Children Love to Make

Halloween is one of the best times of year for art projects with children. Rather than ten quick ideas, we've picked 3 projects children really love to make: each one gives children something to be proud of, and each one stays on display all autumn.

For each you'll find the age, time, materials and step-by-step instructions.

1. Papier-mâché pumpkins

Ages: 6+ · Time: 2 sessions (drying in between)

Our Halloween classic. A papier-mâché pumpkin is light, sturdy, and can sit by the door or on the windowsill right through to November.

Materials: a balloon, newspaper, wallpaper paste or flour and water, string, a cardboard roll, acrylic paints, brushes

1. Blow up the balloon and cover it with newspaper strips dipped in paste — 3–4 layers, smoothing each with your hand
2. Before it dries, tie a few vertical lengths of string around the balloon — these become the pumpkin's ridges
3. Leave it to dry completely, ideally overnight
4. Pop the balloon, pull it out, and seal the hole at the top
5. Cover a piece of cardboard roll in papier-mâché to make the stem, and glue it on top
6. Paint it one bold colour — orange, pink, marigold — then finish with black dots and rings

Tip: don't rush the painting. Damp papier-mâché dents under the brush.

2. Cardboard haunted house

Ages: 6+ · Time: 2 hours

A few pieces of cardboard become a house with orange light glowing in its windows.

Materials: cardboard, scissors, glue, black paint, orange tissue paper, lolly sticks, cotton wool, white and black paper, a small LED light

1. Cut out the walls, a pitched roof and a chimney, plus windows and a door in the walls (an adult does this part)
2. Glue the house together and paint the walls black
3. Lay strips of card on the roof as tiles, and across the windows as frames
4. Cover the windows from the inside with orange tissue paper
5. Build a fence from lolly sticks, ghosts from white paper, and a bat and spider from black
6. Stretch a little cotton wool into cobwebs and chimney smoke
7. Put the LED light inside and switch off the room light

Tip: always use an LED light, never a real candle — card and tissue paper catch fire easily.

3. Spider jars in a web

Ages: 5+ · Time: 1 hour

The simplest of the three, and after dark the spookiest.

Materials: glass jars, black acrylic paint, a wide brush, black pipe cleaners, large googly eyes, stretchy fake cobweb, black paper, LED lights

1. Paint the jar black with quick, rough strokes — you want gaps, because that's where the light shines through
2. Bend four pipe cleaners into eight legs and glue them to the sides of the jar
3. Stick on two large googly eyes
4. Wrap the jar in stretched cobweb and sit a little plastic spider in it
5. Cut bats from black paper and hang them behind the jars
6. Put an LED light inside

Tip: make jars in different sizes — three spiders side by side look like a family.

Which project for which child

• For younger children (5–6): spider jars — quick, simple steps, instant results
• For ages 6–8: the haunted house — lots of small details to invent
• For older children (7+): papier-mâché pumpkins — they take patience, but they last for years

Halloween at our studio

We teach papier-mâché, cardboard building and painting in workshops at our Wilanów studio, in small groups and in English. On 17 October there's also our Mexican calavera mask workshop. Want to ask about a date? Get in touch.