10 Spooktacular Halloween Crafts that are Easy to Make

October has announced itself with the colder weather, shorter days and crunchy leaves underfoot. For some, this means Christmas is on the way, in our house the countdown to Halloween. So I thought I’d bring you 10 Halloween crafts that are easy to make

The lovely people at Viking sent me a bountiful box of craft supplies to help me with my quest to have the most spooktacular house on the street!

Here’s what was in the box:

 

So now you’re dying to see what I made, aren’t you?

And here’s how to make everything in the picture plus a couple of extras.

1. The Hairy Scary

You will need:
Yarn, 4 pipe cleaners, 2 googly eyes, scissors to cut the yarn

First we need to make a pompom, which is much easier than you think. Some people will tell you to wrap the yarn around some card, but I’m a lazy crafter and just use my hands. Wrap lots and lots of yarn around your hand, spread your finger so you don’t end up cutting off your circulation!

There’s no exact science to this bit, you just need to keep wrapping the yarn until it looks like it would make a really luscious pompom. When you’re satisfied that your pompom will be big enough, cut the yarn, then cut another piece that about 12cm in length. Slowly pull the yarn off your hand and use the 12cm piece of yarn to tightly tie the wrapped up yarn in the centre. I tend to tie tightly then continue to wrap and tie on alternate sides until I’m sure it’ll hold. Finally, cut the loops so that they are all flat ends and trim the pompom into a neat sphere.

To add the legs, all you need to do is locate the centre of the pompom and post the pipe cleaners through the small gap in the centre. Bend the legs into fun, spider-like shapes and finish off by adding googly eyes to the top of the pompom.

2&3. Pompomkin & Lollipumpkins

Pompomkin

This one should be easy now that you know how to make a pompom. It’s the same method as above and the finishing touch is to add a green pipe cleaner as a stalk. Just thread it through the centre of the pompom and shape accordingly. Simple!

Lollipumpkin

For this you will need a lollipop, two ten 10cm squares of orange tissue paper, orange yarn and a black marker pen. Double the tissue squares up to add thickness and wrap the lollipop by placing it in the centre of the paper. Secure the paper by winding the orange yarn around it and tying it securely before finishing up by drawing a traditional Jack O’Lantern face on the paper using the black marker pen.

4&5. Sweet Apparitions and Soft Tassel Spectres

Sweet Apparitions

Using the same method as above for the Lollipumpkins, except this time using white tissue and googly eyes for the face.

Soft Tassel Spectres

The method is similar to pompom making except you don’t need quite as much yarn. Also before you take the yarn off your hand, you need to thread some yarn through the loop at the top of your hand and tightly secure by tying a knot. Once you’ve done that, instead of tying a knot in the centre of the loop you’ve created (like with the pompoms), tie it about a quarter of the way down so that it looks like a little head. Then cut the bottom of the loop and neaten it up into a straight line (imagine you’re cutting your own fringe). Use your black marker to make two dots for eyes, et voila! Some Soft Tassel Spectres!

6. A Friendly Witch’s Cat

This one is super easy, all you need is some black card, 6 pieces of white yarn (approx 2cm in length), the end of a pink pipe cleaner, some Pritt stick, scissors, a pencil and a white marker.

Use the pencil to draw the outline of a cat’s face, cut it out and turn it over. Fold the pink pipe cleaner into a head shape and stick it to the centre of the card using the glue stick to make a nose. Next stick 3 pieces of yarn either side of the nose. Finally use the white marker to draw the eyes and the mouth of the cat and you’re all done! This is quite  a nice one for young children of a nervous disposition, think ‘cute Halloween’ instead of ‘terrifying horror show’.

7. Arachnipop

So very simple! You need four pipe cleaners, two googly eyes and a lolly.Wrap the four pipecleaners round and over the lolly stick and bend them into spider-like leg shapes, then stick the googly eyes on the lolly wrapper. It’s fine to give these out to kids but tell their mum about the eyes as you hand them over, you don’t want to get a reputation as the witch who gives out choking hazards.

8. Fluffy Spider

Again, another pompom (I’m a big fan). This time I’ve threaded four longish crochet chains through as legs, but it you can’t crochet then plaits will suffice, or even those curly shoelaces you can buy. This spider was finished off with some googly eyes and I added a loop (threaded through the centre) so I can hang him somewhere or maybe make some creepy bunting.

Flat Spider

I couldn’t have a big long list of crafts and not include crochet! These last two are for all fellow crocheters out there, the pattern is written in UK abbreviations so if you’re in America, you’ll need a conversion chart. (Excuse my pattern writing skills, my abbreviations aren’t up to scratch so it might be extra descriptive)

Hook size 3.5mm, yarn weight DK

Foundation
Ch5  then sl st to form a loop
Round 1
Ch 2, 11 tr into centre of loop, working in yarn tail as you go. Sl st into 2nd st of the ch 2 to close the circle.
Round 2
Ch2, 1tr into stitch at bottom of the ch2, then 2tr into each stitch all the way round, sl stitch into 2nd st of the ch 2 to close the circle.
Round 3
Ch2, 1tr into stitch at bottom of the ch2, then 2tr into next stitch, 1tr into following st, 2tr into next one and repeat all the way round, sl st at the end to complete circle.
Round 4
(Ch 21 then dc into 2nd ch from hook and dc into every ch- back to the stitch where the chain originated, dc into this s and the next one)* then ch21 and repeat process* 3 more times until you have four legs, then dc into the next 7 st and repeat process  until you have 8 legs. Finish with a sl st and sew in ends.

Stick on the googly eyes to add character.

For longer, more wiggly legs increase the number of ch stitches to whatever you feel like!

Spooky Cobweb

First of all, I apologise that this is a photo of me blocking the web, I got overzealous with the wetting of it and it is still drying, even after a few days!

Foundation
Ch5 then sl st to form a circle
Round 1
Ch1 then tr into centre of loop working in tail, ch 3, (tr into centre)* repeat 3 more times, then sl st into first tr to complete loop
Round 2
(ch 1, back post tr behind the tr below, ch 1 bptr behind the st you’ve just done, ch 5)* repeat 4 more times then sl st into top tr
Round 3
(ch 1, back post tr behind the tr below, ch 1 bptr behind the st you’ve just done, ch 8)* repeat 4 more times then sl st into top tr
Round 4
(ch 1, back post tr behind the tr below, ch 1 bptr behind the st you’ve just done, ch 12)* repeat 4 more times then sl st into top tr
Round 5
(ch 1, back post tr behind the tr below, ch 1 bptr behind the st you’ve just done, ch 16)* repeat 4 more times then sl st into top tr
Round 6
(ch 1, back post tr behind the tr below, ch 1 bptr behind the st you’ve just done, ch 18)* repeat 4 more times then sl st into top tr
ch 20 for the long post that will be used to hang the web, leave the yarn tail long, repeat for the other four posts.

For blocking I used a foam board and pinned the web tightly onto it. I used a mixture of PVA glue and water and sprayed it to help it set in a more rigid fashion.

What are you making this Halloween? I’d love to see it!

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