DIY Halloween Decorations

Many of you will know that I try to save money where I can. We love making our own Halloween decorations and it’s something that I’ve always done with my kids. We usually prefer to make our own Halloween snacks and play our homemade Halloween games when the freaky festivities begin. It just feels a little more fun knowing that we’ve made all the fun ourselves! This year we’re taking our DIY Halloween attitude one step further and creating our very own spooky Halloween signs and decorations. 

Halloween is going to be a little different this year. 

Thanks to COVID, we can all be sure that Halloween will be a little different this year. We aren’t going to have the usual gaggle of children trick or treating and there won’t be too many ‘best costume’ competitions either. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t still make it a fun holiday for the kids! 

I’ve seen lots of posts across social media that talk about ways in which communities can still carry on with the traditional Halloween festivities. 

One of the most popular suggestions has been to count the number of pumpkins on display. Kids can count the pumpkins and then the parent or guardian who’s with them can reward them with a sweet. 

I actually think this is a great idea as it encourages the children to actually earn their treat, rather than expecting buckets of sweets to be thrown at them. Plus it allows them to still get outside, dress up and enjoy Halloween this year.

Making our own Halloween decorations and Halloween signs. 

Having previously only ever lived in flats, we’ve never had the opportunity to kit out our front door with Halloween decorations before! There never seemed much point to decorating as no one ever saw our front door and we never got any trick or treaters. 

This year, however, although we won’t get trick or treaters, we are still really excited to be able to decorate the exterior of our home for the first time. A lot of our Halloween goodies got lost in the house move earlier this year, so being thrifty and making our own Halloween decorations seemed like the best idea. 

Free freaky fonts from Font Bundles. 

As a blogger and content creator, I have a subscription to Photoshop, which is a great first step to making your own Halloween decorations. However, although the choice of fonts available is pretty good, there aren’t many spooky themed fonts to choose from. Font Bundles is a website that I wish I had discovered sooner as it’s crammed full of great fonts, all at amazing prices. They even have a free font section on their website, which is where I downloaded the fonts for our decorations and prints. 

Homemade Halloween Decorations

Count the pumpkin signs. 

The first sign I created for our front door is the ‘count the pumpkins’ sign. As I mentioned, I really like this concept for celebrating Halloween this year, so I had to get on board and encourage the local kids to count the pumpkins dotted around the front of our home.

I searched through the selection of free fonts available on Font Bundles and discovered lots that were suitable for Halloween. I used a couple of complimentary fonts to create the counting pumpkins sign, ‘Paper Phil’ and ‘Bajhera’. Using photoshop I applied some different effects to the fonts, just to make them stand out a bit more and then used a couple of free paint brushes that I downloaded to complete the sign. 

Trick Or Treat signs.

Even though I’m not expecting any actual trick or treaters this year, it still doesn’t feel right not to have a ‘Trick or Treat’ sign or two!

I didn’t want all the signs to be boring and have plain white backgrounds, so I decided to play with the colours a bit on Photoshop. I wanted to go for a bold and colourful look – one that wasn’t too spooky – but something that still had a hint of Halloween ‘gore’ to it. 

I used rounded fonts for “trick” and “treat” to make them stand out – Trick uses the free ‘Midnight Show’ font from Font Bundles and Treat uses ‘Paper Phil’. To add a hint of spooky Halloween gore, I used ‘Bajhera’ again and added some splatters of red using a free downloaded brush for Photoshop.

The other, more friendly sign, uses lighter, more inviting colours. The leaves are a free brush for Photoshop, and again I have used free fonts from Font Bundles; ‘Creepy Forest’ and ‘Midnight Show’.

BOO Garland.

Is it possible to celebrate any form of holiday without making a themed garland? I don’t think so. I kept things really simple with this ‘Boo’ garland by simply picking a good pumpkin-esk orange colour and using the ‘Creepy Forest’ free font with a thick black stroke to make the letters stand out. 

Other signs and prints.

I love a good print so I thought a great way of decorating the front of our house, and our front door, would be to create some fun prints. My favourite of the prints I created on Photoshop is the ‘Creep It Real’ one; I love the simplicity and the ‘Bajhera’ font from Font Bundles works really well.

I made some creepy themed signs as well to stick on the front door. I love the Poison Apple sign that uses free fonts and some fun brushes and overlays to make it look a bit more spooky. 

Happy Halloween!

So those are my DIY Halloween decorations and signs. They took me about an hour to mock up on Photoshop, including the time it took to download and install the fonts from Font Bundles. I really like them and think it’s a nice, easy and cheap way to celebrate Halloween. Feel free to download and print any of the designs you like, and if you do, be sure to tag me in them on Instagram or Twitter.

*Collaborative post.

Do you enjoy making your own Halloween decorations too? Let me know in the comments.