Activity/Craft,  Family

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. 

Front door with DIY Halloween decorations saying 'trick or treat', 'happy halloween' and 'boo'. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween 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. 

A sign that says 'poison apples help yourself....' and a cauldron full of apples with candles around the outside. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween decorations.

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.

A poster that says 'how many pumpkins can you spot' with fake candles and orange pumpkin fairy lights. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween decorations.

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. 

A poster that says 'it's pumpkin time' with orange pumpkin fairy lights and fake candles. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween decorations.

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. 

A poster that says trick or treat and has 2 pumpkins at the bottom. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween decorations.

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’.

A homemade garland that says 'boo'. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween decorations.

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. 

3 homemade halloween signs with orange pumpkin fairy lights. For a blog post on creating your own Halloween decorations.

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.


Rachael is a 31 year old mum to 10 year old Luke and 5 year old Oscar. She lives in England and writes about family life, crafts, recipes, parenting wins(and fails), as well as travel, days out, fashion and living the frugal lifestyle.

15 Comments

  • Claire Lomax

    These are fantastic! Halloween is sure going to be an odd one this year. Like you though i am keen to still go all out.

    It’s lovely for children to see even if they can’t come knocking x

  • Claire Lomax

    These are fantastic! Halloween is sure going to be an odd one this year. Like you though i am keen to still go all out.

    It’s lovely for children to see even if they can’t come knocking x x

  • Sim @ Sim's Life

    I love the idea of counting how many pumpkins you can spot! Halloween this year is going to be totally different! My daughter mentioned last year than she no longer wanted to trick or treat (maybe I still do!), so it was going to be different for us anyway. But having noone knock on.. as sad as it sounds, I’m just not even going to prepare this year 🙁 Sim x

  • Valerie

    They all look terrific, what a great idea to decorate and have a fun project. I really like the boo banner, I’d make one of thosemyself.

  • Rhian westbury

    You’re so right about halloween being different in 2020, but decorating your own house and making it feel spooky will be fun for you and the kids. Love the crafts you’ve done x

  • Yeah Lifestyle

    My kids love doing Halloween decorations and this is something we do every year. You have provided some great ideas here which we will be following as I’ve told them that we are not going trick of treating this year.

  • Jenni

    We love decorating for halloween, and I have just ordered lots of card and craft materials so we can get started. These all look like great ideas! I do love this time of year.

  • MELANIE EDJOURIAN

    I love your ideas for Halloween decorations. I think my son would enjoy doing them this year instead of trick or treating. He does love arts and crafts.

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