45+ DIY Outdoor Halloween Decorations

‘Tis the season to haunt your house inside and out. Gear up for All Hallows’ Eve celebrations by giving your outdoor spaces a monstrous makeover with our DIY decor projects. From levitating cauldrons and haunted tree ghosts to floating witch's hats and temporary tombstones — we’re covering all the bases to make your yard the creepiest (and cutest!) on the block. Check out more than 45 of our best DIY outdoor Halloween decorations guaranteed to bewitch friends and foes alike this season. Or, if you'd rather buy than DIY, check out our shoppable guide.

Dress up your entryway for Halloween with this easy-to-build topiary that uses a tomato cage, an urn planter and plastic skulls. When displayed as a matching set, these topiaries make a big, spooky impact on any porch.

Metallic, black and burnt orange florals and glittery pumpkins come together to create an elegant gothic door decoration that melds the autumn season with Halloween.

With a few plastic bones, zip ties and some paint, you can transform a secondhand light fixture into this funky chandelier. This is a simple project that doesn't cost a lot to make. Whether you hang it over the dining room table or make it a doorway decoration for your haunted house, it is sure to shine, no bones about it.

Add a touch of dramatic elegance to your fall decor with this easy-to-make skull planter with dusty pink roses, turquoise pumpkins and billowy black florals.

Don’t put those tomato stands away for the winter just yet, we’ve got a better idea. Use them to make these adorable porch ghosts. It takes just a few dollars in materials — fabric, a paper lantern and holiday string lights that you probably already have. Make a cute pair like we did or fill your entire yard with a troupe of ghosts to greet trick-or-treaters.

Delight your neighbors with these hilarious, life-size, posable skeletons for Halloween: This skeleton is an homage to the glory of crisp fall mornings. Adorn him with a beanie and blanket while he peruses the obituaries and sips his coffee in a cozy porch chair.

This Halloween, go big (we mean REALLY BIG) with these extra-large frightful and festive gravestones. Gigantic yard skeletons are having a massive moment and these tombstones can certainly add a little extra magic to the scene. Whether you invested in a 12-foot skeleton and need some affordable decor to complement it or you just want to create your own super-sized graveyard masterpiece, this is the project for you.

Your neighbors will be just dying to know where you got this clever yet creepy welcome sign. You don't have to tell them it is one of the simplest DIY Halloween projects ever — it just takes a bit of assembly but not a lot of money.

Are you looking to add a little romance to your Halloween decor? Craft this sweet wreath of eternal love.

Easily turn a plain garden urn into Halloween stoop decor with the help of a few skeleton parts, dark plants (we used purple leaf elephant ear, dark mystery pilea, pan am pilea, cherry mint rex begonia) and dried seed pods.

Halloween decor contains traditional storybook monsters like Frankenstein, Dracula and Werewolf. This year, celebrate another famous mythological monster — The Kraken. Originating in Norse folklore, the Kraken is a ginormous sea monster (like the size of a ship, ginormous) that is a cross between a squid and an octopus with massive sucker-filled tentacles laced with barbed hooks. Make a smaller, less menacing Kraken using upcycled pool noodles and small suction cups for the arms and eyeball, then add them to a strawberry pot to create this sea monster porch planter.

Why lose your head over Halloween decorating when an ill-fated horseman lost his in your stead? Stir up your neighborhood with a spooky seasonal display inspired by the hauntings of Sleepy Hollow. Whip up a harrowing, headless horseman of your own, complete with a cute, hand-lettered sign to direct treat traffic to your door.

This lovely madame was inspired by Cartrina the "Lady of the Dead." She is a sacred symbol of the Mexican celebration, Día de Muertos. Trick-or-treaters will be trying to guess whether she is real or a statue. To make her elegant yet mysterious, we used a traditional mask with a black veil and flowing tulle cape.

Treat neighbors to a sinister and spine-tingling yard display with our haunted hotel sign. Pro tip: Go to a salvage yard to get an old post and corbel — they’ll already be aged, weathered and sufficiently creepy.

Treat passersby to some serious eye candy in honor of All Hallows' Eve with a pile of painted pumpkins on your porch. Bring home pumpkins in varying sizes for dimension and costume the lot with your choice of 3-5 Halloween-inspired paint motifs. Here, ghostly-white, glitter leaves and sinister stripe gourds join forces with metallic rose and orange pumpkins beneath bone-chilling bare trees to haunt this front stoop.

For this creepy takeover, blogger Amanda Campbell of The Ginger Home bought oversized arachnids and secured them to the porch of her house in Alberta, Canada, using slim finishing nails. The project was simple enough, other than one minor challenge, she reports: “During setup, our beagle, Ollie, kept wrestling with the spiders!”

You know what they say — if you’ve got it, haunt it! Give your garden or porch bench a festive facelift just in time for trick-or-treating by surrounding it with three harvest-ready hay bales and pumpkins by the dozen. Disguise your existing outdoor cushions with our dreadful DIY skeleton pillow cover project, linked below, to complete the harrowing display.

Inform neighbors that the witch is in with a pointed hat display. Levitate your hats sans magic by threading some fishing wire through each hat's pointed tip. Secure overhead with outdoor tacks and dangle each hat at varying heights for the most bewitching results.

Come, we fly! Reach new heights with your Halloween decor this year by conjuring yourself a pair of our classic witch’s broomsticks. Follow our step-by-step guide, below, to make the iconic besoms with foraged twigs and craft supplies you already have at home. Once complete, park the pair in your porch planters to add height and a touch of magic to your outdoor display.

Transform your front door into a colorful 10-eyed monster to keep a watch over the neighborhood this scary season. All you need to give your door the googly-eye treatment is a pack of vibrant card stock, crepe paper, scissors and double-sided tape. Oh, and add a gruesome grin and Frankenstein-inspired hair to complete the dreadful display.

Bring your long-forgotten lemonade stand back from the dead to pass out candy this year. Cloak your once-cheerful stand in sinister shadows by applying alternating inky-black and glittering purple paint to each crate. Drape an eerie banner from dowel rods to invite costumed kiddos to your porch for a little something sweet.

Give trick-or-treaters the fright of their life with this petrifying packing tape porch mummy. To make, apply clear packing tape to a dress form or mannequin with the sticky side up, wrapping the tape around each part of the form. Apply packing tape again, but this time with the sticky side facing down to cover the first layer of tape. Once complete, cut the solid creation up the back to remove it from the form and use it to guard your candy bowl for years to come.

For an easy-to-assemble front porch makeover, take a cue from designer Natassja Conway. She wrapped the front door of her home in Powell, Ohio, with stretchy gauze fabric, then stuck on googly eyes using self-adhesive strips. “The 9-foot-tall cornstalks were a challenge to stuff into our car at the nursery,” she says, “but easy to lean in the corners!”

Transform your simple galvanized bucket planters into something a bit more sinister for scary season. Paint a creepy-cute jack-o’-lantern face onto the galvanized surface with black paint. You can freehand this gruesome grin from memory or use one of our free printable pumpkin-carving templates, below, to help you along the way.

In just a few steps, you can turn scrap wood planks into expressive and eerily adorable porch poltergeists. Style the playful planks in groups and pair them with pumpkins to frame your front door or anchor a garden bench for the season.

These levitating ghosties are easy to craft using empty toilet paper rolls, white cheesecloth, googly eyes, glue and a bit of string. Use outdoor tacks to secure and dangle at varying heights to achieve playful results.

Now, how's this for a grim greeting? Ignite your guests' arachnophobia when they step onto your stoop. Make this spine-chilling spider door hanger with an old (or thrifted) picture frame, spray paint, spider webbing and the hairiest faux tarantula you can find.

There’s always one trick-or-treater who runs off with more than their fair share of sweets from the candy bowl. Solution: A skeleton security guard to keep the kiddos in line. Prop a store-bought skeleton on your porch bench and dress him for the occasion. Bonus points for a skeleton guard dog, too.

You either love it or loathe it, but regardless of your stance, one thing remains true: candy corn is synonymous with the Halloween season. Usher iconic holiday appeal to your front door or porch railing with our DIY candy corn pennant garland. Make it cheaply; use a dollar store pennant banner, craft paints and wood beads.

Turn your trusty pop-up personal tent into the most talked-about Halloween decor on your street with this simple, no-sew project. All you need to get started is four yards of electric green faux fur, a pink feather boa, binder clips, duct tape, green and pink craft felt, a white bunting banner and two googly eyes.

Celebrate the season with this stylish scare tactic: a creepy-crawly spider infestation. Cut out these eight-legged creatures in various sizes from black card stock, then apply them with double-sided tape starting at the door's top left corner. Install the smallest spiders at the top, gradually increasing the arachnid's scale as you reach the lower right corner of the door.

Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. Bring the eerie magic of Oz to your outdoor space with our wicked witch planter project. To make, cut a standard pool noodle in half and insert 5/8-inch dowel rods through the center hole of each. Dress the noodles in striped stockings and thrifted black boots, then secure each leg with floral foam inside your existing planter.

These giant spider webs will earn praise aplenty from neighbors this year. The best part? You only need three things to make these larger-than-life webs for your front yard: three equal-length sticks, white yarn and our step-by-step video tutorial in the link below.

Go batty with your outdoor Halloween display — literally. Recreate this charming display by cutting out a mix of 2-3 size bats from black card stock and applying them to your outdoor walls, windows or doors with double-sided tape. Bonus points if you create this moonlit haunted house backdrop on your door too.

Take your curb appeal down a notch (or 10) with our grim and ghoulish DIY gauze draperies. To get the look, soak cheesecloth in a bucket of black tea overnight and let dry before stapling 8-foot-long sections to a thin piece of wood to create a secure line of drapes. From there, tack the wood strips to your porch overhang, then use scissors to add gashes to complete the tattered look.

Line your banister or garden fence with a set of our eerie, all-seeing owls. This ominous crew adds a touch of whimsy to your home’s otherwise haunted façade. The best part? The feathered flock is crafted from plywood and can be used to guard your porch for years to come.

Brew up some Halloween magic by recreating this beguiling front porch vignette. Nestle twiggy broomsticks near your entry, then use command strips to hang three sweeping cloaks and pointy witch hats from the front door.

Give your neighbors a witchy welcome on All Hallows’ Eve by recreating our levitating cauldron candy bowls. The magical display may look expensive, but it’s not. Our secret? You can make it cheap using dollar store materials. Fasten 3-5 plastic cauldrons together with rope and suspend them from a hook secured to the porch overhang before filling to the brim with individually-wrapped treats.

Welcome Halloween guests with a friendly, furry monster wreath. To craft it, you'll need one yard of black faux fur, small balls in assorted colors and 8-10 sets of plastic vampire teeth. Cover a foam wreath form with the faux fur, securing the ends with strong tape or T-pins. Attach the balls and vampire teeth to the fur with hot glue. Finally, use black and white paint pens to add a slit pupil to each of the eyes.

For a twist on tradition, swap out a standard wreath for a slim basket or straw tote you can fill with a variety of spooky silk blooms, dried seed pods and grasses. For a free finishing touch, gather dead branches from your yard and tie it all together with black-and-white striped ribbon. Get our tips for creating a front door basket that'll take you from Halloween through Christmas, below.

Offer friends and foes a ghastly Halloween greeting with a gang of our glowing tree ghosts. These statement-making spirits look store-bought but are suspiciously simple to make using white fabric, black felt, string, glue, paper lanterns and shepherd’s hooks.

Think twice before tossing out your milk jug. Turn that overlooked jug into a can’t-be-missed masterpiece with this DIY spider decoration. Follow the link, below, to learn how to create giant outdoor spiders for your porch or exterior walls without busting your budget.

Bewitching your children’s hangout is a good idea when it’s this cute. “I put in a pink flood light plus string lights on the ceiling,” says Chesterfield, New Jersey, blogger Ceres Mercurio of The Pink Dream.

A tooth-baring monster, shrieking ghoul and inauspicious black cat — oh my! Follow our lead and give your fall mums a costume with our kid-friendly craft project this Halloween. Dress violet mums in our glittering feline pot, linked below, put your white posies in our ghost planter and for marigold, go bold with our winged monster design.

Watch the quick video, below, to learn how to turn inexpensive foam sheets into not-too-terrifying mini tombstones on the cheap. Install the graveyard in your front yard and dangle a few faceless ghosts from tree branches overhead for good measure.

Turn last summer’s beach balls into all-seeing eyeballs for your yard this Halloween. Paint the inflatable balls (don’t forget the bloodshot details!) and scatter the scary eyes throughout your yard and garden.