The best Halloween crafts for kids turn things you already have at home into spooky-cute decorations: paper plates become grinning ghosts and bats, empty toilet paper rolls turn into mummies and monsters, and a few handprints in white paint make a whole haunted family. None of it needs special supplies or a trip to the craft store, and most projects take ten to thirty minutes from start to finish. Below are the projects worth making in 2026, sorted by the materials you already own, by spooky character, and by age, so you can keep little hands busy all October long.
Before buying anything, look in the recycling bin and the craft drawer. The most popular kids' Halloween crafts all start from the same handful of cheap, safe materials, and the homemade look is half the charm. The supplies that do the most work are simple:
Paper plates for ghosts, bats, pumpkins, black cats and spiders.
Toilet paper and paper towel rolls for mummies, monsters, bats and jack-o'-lanterns.
Popsicle sticks for witches, mummies, Frankenstein and spooky picture frames.
Construction paper and tissue paper for suncatchers, torn-paper art and paper chains.
Paint, googly eyes and glue to bring almost any of the above to life.
Paper cups and paper bags for standing characters and puppets.
Cosy costumes for craft night and the big day
1Kids' Skeleton Halloween Onesie – soft, no-fuss bones the chief crafter can wear straight from the table to trick-or-treating.
2Kids' Devil Onesie – a little mischief in cosy fleece for the spookiest helper.
3Kids' Unicorn Onesie – a glow-in-the-dark pick for kids who want cute over creepy.
4Women's Monster Onesie – a matching grown-up layer for the parent running the glue gun.
A safety note worth saying out loud: keep these crafts to paper, glue and paint for younger children, and save anything with scissors, hot glue or pumpkin carving for older kids with an adult close by. Almost every project below is safe for preschoolers with a grown-up handling the cutting.
Easy paper plate crafts
Paper plates are the single most useful Halloween craft material, because the round shape is already a face, a pumpkin or a spider's body before you start. These are the paper plate projects that show up on every roundup, refined to the ones that genuinely look good on the fridge.
Fang-tastic favorite
Women's Unicorn Onesie
Get ready to charm and chill in Women's Unicorn Onesie, made for trick-or-treaters of every age.
Cut a wavy bottom edge into a white paper plate so it looks like a floating ghost, glue on two black paper eyes and a wide "boo" mouth, and you are done. For a puffier version, glue cotton balls across the plate first. It is the easiest craft on this list and perfect for toddlers.
Paper plate spider
Paint a paper plate black, fold and glue four black pipe cleaners under each side for eight legs, and add a row of googly eyes. Punch a hole at the top and hang it with string so it dangles in a doorway. Pipe-cleaner legs make it spring and wobble, which kids love.
When the crafting is done and the big night arrives, a few kids' Halloween costumes let the little makers stay in character from the craft table all the way to the front door.
Paper plate black cat and bat
The same painted plate becomes a black cat (add triangle ears and a curl of paper for a tail) or a bat (fold the plate in half and cut scalloped wings from the offcuts). Hang a few cats and bats together and you have an instant Halloween gallery.
Toilet paper roll and popsicle stick crafts
Cardboard tubes and craft sticks are the recyclers' favourite, and they make characters that stand up on a shelf or work as puppets. Save your empty rolls through September and you will have a full cast ready by Halloween.
Toilet paper roll mummy
Wrap a cardboard tube in strips of white tape or torn white paper, leaving a small gap for two googly eyes peeking out. Wrapping the strips is brilliant fine-motor practice for little fingers, and no two mummies ever come out the same.
Toilet paper roll monsters and pumpkins
Paint a tube any bright colour, add googly eyes, paper teeth and pipe-cleaner arms for a friendly monster, or paint it orange with a green paper stem for a standing jack-o'-lantern. A row of these along a windowsill makes a cheerful, candy-free decoration.
Popsicle stick witch, mummy and Frankenstein
Glue three or four craft sticks side by side, then paint them green for Frankenstein (add black yarn hair and bolt details), white for a mummy, or build a witch with a paper hat and yarn hair. These dry fast and make great fridge magnets with a strip of magnetic tape on the back.
Spooky characters kids actually want to make
Beyond materials, it helps to think in characters, because most kids have a favourite. Here are the classic Halloween figures and the simplest way to make each one:
Ghosts: handprint ghosts in white paint on black paper, tissue-paper ghosts, or a cotton-ball paper plate ghost.
Bats: a black handprint with the thumb as the head, folded-paper bats, or a torn-paper bat collage.
Pumpkins: potato-stamped pumpkin patches, yarn-wrapped pumpkins, or a no-carve painted pumpkin.
Spiders: a paper plate spider, an egg-carton spider, or a pom-pom spider with pipe-cleaner legs.
Witches and monsters: paper plate witch faces, shape monsters cut from coloured paper, and googly-eyed sock or paper-bag puppets.
Mummies and Frankenstein: tape-wrapped tubes, popsicle-stick figures, or candy-corn-coloured torn-paper mummies.
The handprint versions double as keepsakes, so date the back and you will treasure them long after the candy is gone.
Crafts by age, from toddlers to big kids
Matching the project to the child keeps everyone happy. The right craft is the one your child can mostly do themselves, with you handling the fiddly bits.
Toddlers (ages 2 to 3)
Stick to no-scissors, big-motion crafts: contact-paper suncatchers where toddlers press tissue squares onto sticky film, finger-painted monsters, handprint ghosts and bats, and straw-blown ghost art where they blow watery white paint across black paper. Mess is the point at this age, so cover the table and let them go.
Preschool and kindergarten (ages 4 to 6)
This is the sweet spot for paper plate ghosts, toilet-roll mummies, popsicle-stick witches and cut-and-paste characters. Add safety scissors and simple gluing so they build fine-motor skills, and use free printable templates to take the guesswork out of shapes.
Elementary kids (ages 7 and up)
Older children can handle more steps and tools: stained-glass tissue-paper suncatchers, yarn-wrapped pumpkins, string-art Halloween shapes, sugar-skull drawings for Dia de los Muertos, and even a no-carve painted pumpkin. Give them a project with a few stages and they will stay absorbed for an afternoon.
Turn it into a cosy craft night
The best part of Halloween crafting is not the finished bat on the wall, it is the afternoon spent making it together. SillySanta is built around the at-home side of the holiday: the part where the table is covered in glue and googly eyes, everyone is in something soft, and a scary-but-not-too-scary movie is on in the background. Pull on matching Halloween onesies for the whole craft session, let the kids stay in their kids' onesies while the paint dries, and have a grown-up costume ready from the women's Halloween costumes for handing out sweets at the door. Make the crafts, hang them up, then settle in for movie night in your cosiest layer.
Halloween itself traces back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when people lit bonfires and wore costumes to ward off roaming spirits, a tradition you can read more about via Britannica's history of Halloween. The carved jack-o'-lantern grew from an Irish folk tale about "Stingy Jack" and was first made from turnips before pumpkins took over in North America. Knowing the roots turns a paper plate ghost into more than a craft: it is a hands-on way to keep a very old tradition alive, one googly eye at a time.
Halloween crafts for kids 2026
Most kids' Halloween crafts take 10 to 30 minutes from start to finish.
Paper plates, toilet paper rolls and popsicle sticks cover nearly every classic project.
A black handprint with the thumb as the head makes an instant bat.
No-carve painted pumpkins last the whole season, unlike carved ones that rot in days.
Halloween grew from the Celtic festival of Samhain, celebrated on October 31.
The jack-o'-lantern was first carved from turnips before pumpkins took over in North America.
Frequently asked questions about Easy Halloween Crafts for Kids (2026 Guide)
The easiest crafts use a paper plate, paint, glue and googly eyes. A paper plate ghost with a wavy cut edge, a black handprint bat, and a toilet paper roll mummy wrapped in white tape are all quick, mess-friendly and perfect for toddlers and preschoolers with a grown-up handling any cutting.
Save paper plates, toilet paper and paper towel rolls, popsicle sticks, paper cups and paper bags. With just paint, glue and googly eyes you can turn them into ghosts, bats, spiders, mummies, monsters and jack-o'-lanterns without buying any special supplies.
Toddlers do best with no-scissors, big-motion crafts: contact-paper suncatchers where they press tissue squares onto sticky film, finger-painted monsters, handprint ghosts and bats, and straw-blown ghost art. Cover the table, expect mess, and let them explore the materials.
Elementary kids enjoy multi-step projects like stained-glass tissue-paper suncatchers, yarn-wrapped pumpkins, string-art Halloween shapes and sugar-skull drawings. For a school or classroom party, free printable templates for bats, witches and pumpkins keep a big group on the same project.
Yes. Most Halloween crafts are naturally candy-free: paper plate spiders, handprint art, popsicle-stick witches, painted no-carve pumpkins and tissue-paper suncatchers all use craft supplies rather than sweets, so they double as decorations you can keep all season.
A basic Halloween craft kit is paper plates, cardboard tubes, popsicle sticks, construction and tissue paper, paint, glue, googly eyes and a few pipe cleaners. Add safety scissors for older children. That short list covers nearly every classic project from ghosts to mummies.
