Make Your Own Halloween Decorations

Homemade Halloween decorations make use of items you already have, so they’re good for the environment and your wallet. How to decorate your home this Halloween DIY style

If you have kids at home you’ll know that Halloween is an important day. My daughter Maia typically starts planning her costume in November and then spends the next 11 months refining it. And she’s ready to start decorating our home round about October 1st.

Making Halloween Decorations is Green and Economical

Halloween decorating can be a lot of fun but if I let Maia have her way we’d end up with houseful of cheap Chinese made plastic skeletons, toxic rubber bats and flimsy witches–not to mention a large bill. This year I got her to do a little online research to come up with a way to give all that orange and black a friendly green tinge.

After sifting through ideas and nixing what I thought was the stupidest (and Maia thought was the best) eco-friendly Halloween tip ever (skipping the toxic man-made cobwebs, and cultivating natural ones by giving up cleaning…) we ended up with more good ideas than we have the space (or budget) for. But maybe you’ll find a little ghoulish inspiration.

Green Halloween Decorations You Can Make Yourself

Compostable Classic Fall Decor: Head to the farm and load up on a variety of gourds and pumpkins, a bale of hay and a few corn stalks. Then arrange them on your front porch (and maybe encourage your own, or a neighbour’s, black cat to snooze with the pumpkins). If you’re feeling crafty try making a wreath of pinecones and leaves for your door and add few spooky silhouettes to your windows. After you’re done the pumpkins can be composted, the paper silhouettes recycled and you can cover your garden with the hay and corn stalks.

Spook-tacular Recycled Crafts: On the next rainy afternoon pull out the craft supplies and your recycling bin and get to work. Recycled egg cartons and cans are great for making bats, spiders (paint the cups black, push black pipe cleaners through the “bodies” and add spooky eyes) and pumpkin votives. While Maia found many great DIY craft ideas online not all of them were made from recyclables—but between a few Juice Carton Halloween Doorstops and a couple of these super cool Milk Jug Skeletons you can deck most of your halls with green Halloween crafts.

Creepy Reusable Decor: If a few recycled crafts alongside your pumpkin simply aren’t going to cut it and you absolutely need to have the creepiest house on the block, there are loads of environmentally friendly options available. Consider decking your yard out with a solar powered corpse or maybe a DIY tombstone. Etsy is also an excellent source for unique handmade Halloween decorations. Just remember to treat your Halloween decorations like Christmas decorations — store them carefully when you’re done and use them again next year.

Diane Selkirk has been living lean and green all her life. The freelance writer, mother, gardener and sailor is always working to steer her condo-dwelling family toward sustainability. Sometimes they do really well, sometimes not so much… Diane has written for such publications as Reader’s Digest, Men’s Journal, Cruising World, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Travelers’ Tales, MSNtravel.com, Pacific Yachting and More.ca, among others.