Vicki Manning

3 min

Creative ways to celebrate Halloween

Updated: Oct 12, 2021

I love Halloween! As a child it wasn't really a 'thing' here in the UK, but I am definitely making up for lost time now! My children are huge fans too, and I am always looking for more creative ways to enjoy the holiday with them.

Here are some fun projects that we have done over the years to celebrate the spooky season in a creative way...

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Painted Pumpkins

Process art at its best! Give your child a small pumpkin and let them go to town with the paints. We love to use schola paints as they give really vibrant results.

When your pumpkins have dried, put them on display!

This is a great alternative to carving for younger children and a great way to entertain the kids at a Halloween party.

Leaf Ghosts

This is such a lovely way to craft with all those fallen leaves, once you've had fun stomping through them that is!

Grab some leaves (sycamore and maple are the best shape for this), make sure they're clean and dry, then paint them white.

Once they're dry, draw on spooky mouths with marker pen and glue on some googly eyes.

Squeegee Print Pumpkins

Squeegee art is totally addictive, you have been warned! You can make all sorts from your prints, but here we made a pumpkin using shades of orange paint.

Grab some orange paint and squirt it in blobs on a plain piece of paper. We used different shades to give our pumpkin that colourful effect.

Take a squeegee and slowly scrape it along the paper from top to bottom to create beautiful blended patterns. Leave it to dry, cut into a pumpkin shape then add features with a marker pen.

Bonfire Transient Art

Transient Art is creating on the go, from found objects. When created from natural materials it can be left for others to enjoy before returning to nature.

Autumn is a great time to create transient art as the leaves are just so colourful.

We had fun making a Bonfire with sticks and leaves, we've also made bats using fallen seeds, and pumpkin shapes using orange leaves.

Marbelled Pumpkins

If you think marbelling is limited to ink and books, think again! You can achieve beautiful results just using nail varnish! And it's super simple.

Grab a glass bowl and fill it with water. Working quickly, pour some nail varnish on the surface in a variety of colours, dip the top of your pumpkin in, remove and leave to dry.

Blow paint ghosts

This is a fun way to create spooky little ghosts. To make it you just need some thick black paper, white paint and a straw.

Put blobs of the paint spaced out on the paper, then take your straw and hold it over the blob (without touching). Blow firmly and your paint will spread out, magically creating ghosts shapes.

If you blow firmly there will be some splatter - that's OK, it can be the ghosts in the night sky! Let the paint dry, then use a marker pen to give them some features.

For more Halloween fun check out 30+ of the BEST ideas for celebrating Halloween at home

Looking for more creative Halloween ideas? Try this puffy ghost craft or our pompom monster craft

Looking for ideas for a Halloween party? We love to play our ghosts on a string game


For more playful and creative learning ideas visit:


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