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Halloween with kids: the best easy and creative DIY ideas
Every year, Halloween is the perfect opportunity to let children's creativity shine! Between the funny costumes, the trick-or-treating, and the spooky (but mostly adorable) decorations, little monsters love being part of the preparations. What if this year, you made your own decorations at home?
Why do Halloween DIY activities with kids?
Arts and crafts have countless benefits for little ones. They help develop imagination, fine motor skills, and self-confidence… while giving kids the pride of decorating the house with their own creations. Halloween DIY activities are also a wonderful alternative to ready-made activities: children take time to create, choose their colors, invent their characters, and personalize their decorations. And let's be honest: a funny pumpkin drawn by little hands always has a special place in the home!
Our easy Halloween DIY ideas for kids
Little tissue paper ghosts
This is THE Halloween DIY par excellence: simple, quick, and truly lovely! Just scrunch up a ball of paper, tuck it into the center of another piece of tissue paper or a handkerchief, tie it with a thread to form the head, and draw a little face with a black marker. Hang them from a driftwood branch with threads of varying lengths, and you have a decoration that makes a real statement in the living room. Kids can personalize each ghost with a different expression: smiling, scary, surprised… It's the perfect activity for a rainy October afternoon!
What you need: white tissue paper, thread, a black marker, a branch, and optionally a few string lights for atmosphere.
The bat garland
A Halloween classic you can make in 10 minutes flat. Fold a sheet of black paper accordion-style, draw half a bat on top (with wings touching the edges of the paper) and cut it out. Unfold and admire the result! Kids can decorate each bat with googly eyes or silver paper to make them even spookier. Hung as a garland in the hallway or around a window, they instantly give the whole house a Halloween vibe.
What you need: black paper, scissors, googly eyes, and a bit of string.
Tasty DIY ideas for the Halloween snack
The clementines
Here's an idea we love! As easy as can be, zero waste, and approved by all kids! Take some clementines and draw pumpkin faces on them with a food-safe marker or a black permanent marker. Triangular eyes, jagged smiles, scars… each child creates their own character. Arranged in a bowl, they make an absolutely adorable Halloween table decoration — and best of all, you get to eat them after! A healthy and creative Halloween snack is totally possible. What you need: clementines and a black permanent marker. That's it!
Ghost cookies
Classic sugar cookies, white icing, and a black food-safe marker — and there you have little ghosts that everyone adores. Prepare the cookie dough with the kids, cut out ghost shapes with a cookie cutter (or by hand — even more authentic!), bake and let cool. Then comes the fun part, decorating: white icing, little black eyes, and each child creates their own unique ghost. A Halloween baking workshop everyone will remember and enjoy eating with great pleasure!
What you need: cookie dough, a cookie cutter, white icing, and a black food-safe marker.
Creative DIY ideas for little artists
Apple stamp pumpkins
This is the cleverest Halloween DIY we've seen in a long time — and kids absolutely love it! Cut an apple in half, dip the cut side into orange paint, and stamp it onto a white sheet of paper. The natural shape of the apple gives a perfect pumpkin every time. Once the paint is dry, kids draw eyes, a nose, and a mouth with a black marker or black paint. The result is truly impressive for so little material, and it keeps the little ones busy for a good while!
What you need: apples cut in half, orange and black paint, white paper, and markers.
The essentials for a successful Halloween DIY workshop
Orange paint stains — and it stains really well. Before getting out the brushes and apple stamps, slip on Aglaé the school smock personalized with your child's name. Machine-washable and reusable for all creative activities throughout the year, it's the essential accessory for every budding little artist. With it, your child can throw themselves fully into the DIY without you keeping one eye on their favorite t-shirt.
Markers, pencils, pens, scissors… To keep all the supplies in one place and easily accessible during the workshop, a personalized pencil case with your child's name on it is perfect. It keeps everything in one spot and follows your child everywhere — Halloween or not!
To carry the ghost cookies and clementines to the school Halloween party, a personalized airtight snack box with your child's name on it is the perfect solution. Sturdy, practical, and really lovely — your tasty creations will arrive in perfect condition, we promise!
Things your little ones say
"I want to put peanut on mine like you, Mommy!
(peanut butter)"
– Gabin, age 3
"Mom, do you know why the sun sets? It's
because it's tired of shining."
– Gustave, age 5
"Mom, do you know what you call hippos who go camping? Hippocamps!"
– Eliott, age 5
AUTHOR
Hello, moi c’est Capucine ! J’espère que cet article vous a plu. Passionnée par la rédaction et spécialisée dans les contenus autour de la petite enfance, je fais partie de l’équipe éditoriale de Petit Picotin. Au fil du blog, j’explore les questions du quotidien des familles pour vous partager conseils, idées et inspirations, en m’appuyant sur des recherches, des sources spécialisées et l’expertise de notre équipe.
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