Five Easy DIY Halloween Outdoor Decorations

As much as we're tempted, going to the local Halloween store (you know the one; it appears inside an empty retail store every September) and spending thousands of dollars on impressive and horrific Halloween animatronics and lawn ornaments, many of us lack the money and inclination to make that kind of investment. Yet, all is not lost. With some ingenuity and elbow grease, you can decorate your home exterior just as impressively using items you more than likely already own. We scoured the internet and found some DIY Halloween outdoor decorations that were impressive, simple, and inexpensive.

Coffee Can Ghosts

Idea & image credit: Chicken Scratch

Some coffee brands still package in those old-fashioned aluminum cans. We'd suggest looking for Chock Full o' Nuts and Folgers, to name two that still do. Not only is this coffee cheap, but it provides you with the raw materials for some rather impressive-looking ghosts.

Here's how to do it:

1. Empty and clean your coffee cans

2. Paint the cans white, and allow the paint to dry

3. Using a permanent marker or black paint, draw some faces on your cans

4. Using a hot glue gun, glue white ribbon all around the inner lip of the open end of the coffee can to give the ghost a “tattered rag” appearance.

Jack O’ Lantern Candle Holder Jars

Who knew how versatile canning jars could be? Speaking of, who actually uses these jars for canning? If you're like us, they do triple-time for a variety of purposes. Thanks to this Jack O' Lantern idea, you can add one more use to the list. With some tissue paper, construction paper, glue, and an LED tea light, you can create some impressive Jack O' Lantern candle holders. 

Here's the process:

1. Unscrew your jar and put the circular lid piece away while keeping the ring

2. Cut your tissue paper (we’d suggest white and orange paper) to roughly fit the exterior of each jar

3. Apply glue (or mod podge) to the exterior of the jar

4. Carefully apply your pre-cut tissue paper to the exterior; don’t worry if it’s wrinkled, as the texture it adds is part of its charm

5. Using scissors, cut any excess paper away so you have a smooth, if textured, finish

6. Apply more glue over the tissue to seal it in place

7. Cut eyes and mouths out of your construction paper (get creative) and dab the backs of each piece with glue

8. Adhere the faces to the tissue paper

9. Give the whole jar one last coat of glue for good measure; this will seal it and help protect it

10. Screw the jar ring back on

11. Place a tea lit inside the jar

Giant Eyeballs for Your Bushes

Idea & image credit: Kitchen Fun

What if you could make your shrubbery come alive for Halloween? With this simple DIY, you can turn your bushes and shrubs into monsters that will delight your neighborhood children, or maybe make their blood run cold! This project is so simple yet effective; all you need are two of those pumpkin candy buckets and some paint.

1. Take your pumpkin candy buckets (you can find these at any dollar store) and mask the circular bottom base with paper

2. Paint both buckets white

3. Remove your masking to reveal an unpainted circle on the bottom of each bucket. This will be the front of the eye

4. Paint the base the color of your eye; we’d suggest green, blue, or a spooky red

5. Allow the paint to dry, then paint a black pupil; use a jar lid to make a perfect black circle

6. Paint veins around the white of the eye with red paint

7. Place your bucket eyes in a bush and watch as it turns into a menacing monster!

Leaf Bag Ghosts

For most of us with full-time jobs, there’s nothing worse than fall yard maintenance. Suddenly, you’re not just cutting your grass once a week, but picking up fall leaves by the bagful. As soon as you finish, you wake up the next day to find more than you picked up the day before. Before you throw your hard work away, consider using those bags of leaves to make ghosts for Halloween!

1. We recommend you use white trash bags for this one, not the brown paper leaf bags you commonly find at stores around this time of year

2. Collect your leaves in your white trash bags

3. Once full, tie your bags off and sit them in your yard with the tied side down

4. Fluff the bag a little to give it a ghostly shape

5. Using a permanent marker, get creative and draw some ghostly faces on your bags

6. You’re done! You now have a small army of ghosts to protect your family over Halloween

While there are many exterior changes you can make to your home to enhance your curb appeal, these are some fun, easy ways to spruce things up. If you’re looking for something a little more serious, reach out to our experts!