Keep Your Little Pumpkins Busy for Hours With Easy Halloween Crafts for Kids (2024)

With a little help from an adult, kids can make this silly, sweet, and perfect for decorating your front door this season.

To make: Wrap a 14-inch foam wreath form with wide black ribbon, securing with floral pins as you go, until completely covered. Cut two 10-inch lengths of 18-gauge craft wire. Poke holes in top of wreath for ears. Bend wire to make ear shapes, and insert into wreath form. Wrap wire ears with ribbon, using hot glue to secure. Add orange burlap bow.

Kids will love helping set the table when you put them in charge of crafting these super simple ghost napkins.

To make: Lay the napkin flat on the table. Place a bunched up tissue or small piece of tissue paper in the center. Gather the napkin up around the tissue (this will be the head) and tie a piece of ribbon just below the tissue.

Older kids will love the challenge of these string art leaf pumpkins. With a more basic design—think simple shapes—this project is perfect for children as young as 6 (get string art tips from the Boston Children's Museum). Bonus: Since pumpkin flesh is softer than wood, a hammer isn't necessary, but if they do use a hammer or crab mallet (better for small hands), make sure they wear safety goggles.

To Make Leaf Pumpkins:

1. Lightly draw or trace a leaf on a pumpkin (in our example, the white pumpkin is a maple leaf and the orange pumpkin is an oak leaf).
2. Press 3/4" nails halfway into the pumpkin at the points and dips in the leaf. Wrap yarn around nails, working across the leaf to fill in the center.
3. Insert additional nails an inch or so apart along the center of the leaf, and wrap with a second color yarn to create “veining.”
4. Using a third yarn color, wrap yarn around the outside nails to outline the leaf.

Make a little magic with sittin'-around skeins, fabric scraps, and mini pumpkins.

To Make Gnome Pumpkins:

1. Trace the gnome hat template on wool fabric, adjusting size as necessary; cut out.
2. Use craft glue or iron-on fusible tape to glue straight edges of hat together, forming a cone shape. Fill with batting to help it stand upright; set hat on a small pumpkin.
3. Attach a small wood craft bead to pumpkin with hot-glue to create a nose.
4. Attach strands of yarn around nose with hot-glue to create beard; trim as necessary.

Using our templates for spiders, bones, and skulls, anyone (even the little ones) can help make these creepy classic Halloween crafts with paper.

To make:

1. Cut a 5"W x 18"L strip from a 12"W x 18"L sheet of construction paper. Measure in 3 inches from one of the 5-inch ends and mark. From there, measure and mark four more times.
2. Fold paper at the first mark. Then flip over and fold again at the next mark. Keep flipping and folding, making an accordion shape.
3. Print the template of your choice and cut out. (Your template should be 3" wide.)
4. Center it atop the folded paper, and trace around the shape with a pencil.
5. Cut out the shape, going through all the layers of folded paper but taking care to leave attached at the widest points of the design where it touches the folded sides. Unfold to reveal. To create a longer row, repeat steps and adhere garlands together with tacky glue.

Your kid can get batty with their own handmade puppet.

To make Bat Sock Puppet:

1. Begin by sliding one hand inside a children's black crew sock, until your fingertips reach the end of the sock and its heel rests on the palm of your hand. Using our photo as a guide, determine where the ears, eyes, mouth, fangs, and wings will go; mark with chalk. Remove sock.
2. Hand-stitch two red button eyes in place, then hand-stitch on a single-line mouth with red embroidery floss. Cut out two black felt triangles for the ears and two white felt triangles for the fangs; hand-stitch all in place.
3. Cut two wings out of black felt at least 5"W x 14"L and hand-stitch to the sock as shown.

All the kids need is a little stick-to-itiveness to re-create these easy patterned pretties. Best of all, these no-carve, no-paint creations leave no mess.

Single Washi Tape Quilt Square (shown on smaller white pumpkin): Draw a quilt pattern on a piece of scratch paper (or use our quilt square templates). Cut lengths of washi tape to fit pattern, attaching them to a medium-size white pumpkin as you go.

Multiple Washi Tape Quilt Squares (shown on large white pumpkin): Starting in the center of a large white pumpkin, cut lengths of washi tape to create a square. Use a thinner width of a second color of tape to make another square within the first one. Add a square of tape in the center, and top with a smaller square. Continue making squares, varying the designs as you go.

Washi Tape-Covered Pumpkin (shown on mini blue pumpkin, mini black pumpkin, and small orange pumpkin in bottom right corner): Fully cover a small or medium-size pumpkin vertically with lengths of washi tape. Once covered, attach a piece of twine around the base of the stem, holding it in place with hot-glue.

To Make the Washi Tape Plaid Pumpkin (shown on large orange pumpkin on left): Layer different colors and widths of washi tape vertically and horizontally on a medium-size orange pumpkin to create a plaid pattern.

SHOP WASHI TAPE

Put little fingers to work with this simple cross-stitch pattern. It's primarily one color, so it will be easy for a child to make with a little supervision.

Get the Black Cat Cross-Stitch pattern.

Explore all of Country Living's free cross-stitch patterns.

Let the zigzag trim add some old-fashioned flair to your farmstand finds. An adult should assist with the hot-glue gun.

To make Rickrack Bats Pumpkins: Cut a length of extra-large black rickrack to create a bat shape. Form ears from 1" lengths of 16-gauge black craft wire; attach to the back of the bat with hot-glue. Repeat as desired. Attach bats to pumpkins with hot-glue.

Use vintage masks to create this fun wreath or have kids draw a set for you!

To make Halloween Masks Wreath: Source colorful vintage paper masks from websites like Etsy and eBay—you will need 10 to 15 total. Attach to an 18" craft ring with a dab of hot-glue, layering and overlapping them as you go.

Paper treat boxes are the perfect base for kids to dream up and decorate their own haunted houses. Make a set and then display them on your mantel (like you would a Christmas village).

Get the tutorial at Lawn Fawn.

Send the little ones on a trip around the yard to gather materials and help them (hot glue is… hot!) make this sweet-faced feathered friend.

To make Owl Pumpkin: Gather small- and medium-sized leaves, acorn caps, grasses, and pinecones from the yard. Glue small leaves on the front of a small oblong pumpkin, overlapping them slightly, to create feathers. Glue four larger leaves on either side, overlapping them, to create wings. Attach a piece of thin leather string with hot glue to a small acorn squash to create the outline of the face. Pull apart a pinecone and use the individual scales to create the nose, attaching them with hot glue. Attach acorn caps to create eyes and grass to create ears and whiskers.

Little ones will get a cackle out of wrapping the mini pumpkins with strips of gauze, but leave the staple gun and hot-glue work to a grown-up.

To make Mummy Pumpkins: Wrap a small white pumpkin with strips of gauze, holding strips in place where necessary with hot-glue. Attach two differently sized black buttons with hot-glue to create eyes. Tack down a length of thin black twine with staple-gun staples to create a mouth.

A perfect Halloween craft for preschoolers, these comical paper puppets will have them laughing for days.

Get the tutorial at I Heart Crafty Things.

This craft is definitely for an adult and child to create together, but little hands will love helping decorate this sweet gourd cottage and keeping an eye out for the fairies and gnomes that are surely going to move in.

Get the tutorial for our pumpkin fairy house.

This rickrack web is just so sweet and easy for little hands to create—just be sure kids team up with an adult to handle the hot glue.

To make the Rickrack Spiderweb: Attach horizontal lengths of large gray rickrack with hot-glue around the top three-fourths of a medium-size white pumpkin. Attach vertical lengths, allowing them to sit in the pumpkin’s natural grooves, with hot-glue. Attach mini plastic spiders with hot-glue.

These paper pumpkins may look fancy, but they're actually super easy to make.

Get the tutorial at DIY Inspired.

This cute candy corn hat is perfect for Halloween parties, dress-up and play time, or even to wear as part of DIY Halloween costumes for kids.

Get the tutorial at Love the Day.

Get the classic jack-o'-lantern look with this no-carve cutie. An adult should assist with the hot-glue gun.

To make the Rack-O'-Lantern: Lightly draw a simple pumpkin face on a pumpkin. Use lengths of black rickrack to cover the drawing, attaching it with hot- glue. Attach small white buttons to the corner of each eye with hot-glue. Cut pumpkin-shaped leaves from green felt and lengths of green rickrack to create tendrils; attach at the base of the pumpkin stem with hot-glue.