15 Halloween Decorating and Craft Templates

Lots of things about Halloween should be frightening, but crafting your decorations and costumes shouldn't be. That's why we've provided the artwork you need to complete the projects on these slides, all in one place. Here, you'll find our clip art—like these decoupaged pumpkins, plus much more—ready to download, print, and cut out.

Additionally, all you need is construction paper and a pair of scissors. You can hang some spooky bats from your porch as a warning (or a spooky welcome) for house guests. Let some nightwatcher owls guard your household from the other things that go bump in the night. And who wouldn't love an adorable parade of Halloween ghosts and goblins to grace their foyers, stairwells, and walls?

You will have a haunted good time making these homemade decorations, and your family and friends will love the magic that they create. It's also a great way to save money on holiday décor when you make them yourself. With these DIY Halloween decorations, you can transform your entire home into a fright fest. Scary silhouettes on the stairs trick the eyes in the flickering candlelight. No, wait, they're scampering mice! Extend the spookiness to the yard with witch and cat ornaments affixed to plywood for sturdy strength.

Your decorative scheme sets the stage for a spooktacular Halloween night. Trick-or-treaters will love the spooky atmosphere that these DIY Halloween decorations add to your home. Leave your porch light on for the neighborhood kids who visit in their Halloween costumes. Why not offer some creative Halloween treat bags and favors, too? Just in time for October 31, print out our templates and put up the most memorable Halloween decorations year after year.

Jaunty jack-o'-lanterns and foreboding bats are Halloween versions of the classic paper-doll chain. Print our template onto card stock, fold paper to its width, trace, and cut out. Use scissors for the outline and a craft knife or hole punch for facial features and smaller details. Intersperse them with fringed garlands to add color.

On a pumpkin, you can achieve one of two different looks: coated in colorful leaves, or paired with a pretty printable design. Print out one of the seasonal clip-art designs, snip them out, and glue them down, silhouette-style with decoupage medium, to set a not-so-spooky mood—just right for any gathering this fall.

Maybe you can't have a real owl or black widow drop in to sit for a spell, but you can craft dangling mobile versions. To make your own, follow our templates to cut the paper, then assemble them with string so the wings, eyes, legs, and abdomen flutter and spin as they dangle from the ceiling.

Trick-or-treaters will be happy to receive their own candy bag in autumnal colors. Print our clip-art directly onto these glassine-lined paper bakery bags (preferably using a laser printer). Use a craft punch to make leaves and adhere with a glue stick.

Pails in a pretty hue—and customized with clip-art designs—make a great tabletop idea for serving treats or sweets like candy. To make them, print clip-art on uncoated paper. Cut around perimeter; the "cutouts" within the designs are white or colored, so use the one that will blend with the background you'll be putting it on. (Glue the black-and-pink mouse to a pink bucket, for example.)

Set out a few tombstones in your yard and let them work the graveyard shift on Halloween. These are made by trimming gray paper bags. Paper luminarias are often weighted with sand; these are reinforced with cardboard and staked in place. The light seems to rise up from the ground. They bear an eerie resemblance to real gravestones when lit with LED tea lights.

Any house guest who steps into the foyer will marvel at this wall-mounted haunted mirror you've made with your own two hands. To conjure a pair of these ghostly appendages, download our template—in one of two sizes: small (16" x 22") or large (24" x 36")—and print it to fit the size of your mirror.

As any witch will tell you, A set of these giant gothic lanterns are assembled using nothing more than our instructions, clip-art designs, and simple supplies. To make them, trace your choice of  template four times, side by side, on black paper (use two sheets if needed); with a bone folder, crease where sides meet. Cut out. Print four copies of a design onto vellum. Cut each piece just larger than frame "windows." Tape vellum into the frame. Form into a lamp shape, and tape edges. Next, cut a 26-inch length of wire. In the middle, twist a loop. Poke the wire ends through paper to make two holes at edge of lantern. Use pliers to roll ends of wire to secure. Use monofilament to hang two battery-operated votive candles, taped end to end, inside the lantern. Use twine and removable adhesive hangers to suspend them up high. This project is almost as easy as saying "abracadabra."

Vultures in flight call to mind the imagery of both classic tattoos and macabre Halloween. Here, they're used as playful decorations, alighting (via monofilament) on a display of treat bags—an apt setup for a Halloween party or around the candy bowl on Halloween night.

Tempt your Halloween party guests with an array of candies, only made all the more enticing when displayed in glass containers. Give sunny sweets—swirly sticks, giant gum balls, squishy jelly pumpkins—cheerful, vintage-inspired clip-art labels. Choose licorice, candy sticks, and the like in black to match a party's dark theme, announced with dark, sinisterly named clip-art labels. Or fill large glass jars with sweets—berry candies, dark-chocolate-covered cherries, rock-candy crystals, and meringues—all masquerading as botanical or nautical artifacts.

For this decorative display, the foliated skull and looping border were printed at home on transfer paper and applied to a store-bought mirror. Since it peels off easily, the design can be a temporary adornment. For the skull, cut as close to the images as possible. For the medallion border, cut just inside the thin gray lines. And an added tip: Before peeling away backing, determine and align the correct position of the border (the design overlaps slightly); with the wax pencil, make small guide marks on the mirror.

When the sun goes down, set a spooky scene with these dramatic lanterns made from simple supplies and our clip-art designs. Trace your chosen template four times, side by side, on black paper (use two sheets if needed); with a bone folder, crease where sides meet. Cut out. Print four copies of a design onto vellum (a laser printer works best). Cut each piece just larger than frame "windows." Tape vellum into frame. Trim the bottoms straight; tape edges.

An aptly called murder of crows takes to the sky, overarching your doorway. Print crow templates, tile as needed, and cut out. Tracing the templates onto tar paper (which makes them weatherproof for the outdoors) with a pencil or china marker, then cut out with heavy-duty scissors. They can be secured to pumpkins, corn husks, or encircling your housefront with 20-gauge lengths of bent wire.

Owls appear to be perched on these swinging lanterns. To make them, start by printing our clip-art onto uncoated paper. Cut around the perimeter; the "cutouts" within the designs are white or colored, so use the one that will blend with the background you'll be putting it on. Print starburst templates for colored accents.

These easy, inexpensive window treatments are a spooky addition to windows for Halloween. Print and cut out the ghost templates; trace them onto thin white paper, such as white kraft paper, and cut them out. Stretch the shade flat; tape it to a work surface. Spray the back of a ghost with adhesive, then press it onto the shade. To get a scalloped lower edge, as shown, pinch a stack of pleats up from the bottom (we did eight), and diagonally snip off the ends (see diagram one in the template). Fold the bottom edge in half to fan the pleats, and secure with double-stick tape (see diagram one in the template).