25 Last-Minute Halloween Ideas

Halloween's just around the corner, but it's not too late to enhance your haunted house, add a touch of fright to party decor, or prepare for trick-or-treaters. Get into the spooky spirit with these 25 quick and stress-free Halloween ideas.

Need a quick ice bucket for your Halloween bash? Carve your pumpkin into a festive cooler. Just choose a large, wide pumpkin, cut off the top third with a serrated knife or keyhole saw, and scrape out the pulp and seeds. Line the gourd with a glass or plastic bowl to prevent it from becoming waterlogged. If the pumpkin opening is a bit too small for the bowl, carefully shave the inside edge with a spoon. Finish by filling the bowl with ice and bottled drinks.

Don't feel like carving? Use our templates, plastic vampire teeth, and tacks to turn small white pumpkins into devilish drac-o'-lanterns in no time.

Find More Easy Pumpkin Templates

Welcome trick-or-treaters in hair-raising style by turning your front porch into a bat cave using just black paper, our bat template, and painters' tape.

You and the kids can use your magical powers to create these speedy superhero costumes in record time. Each of these outfits starts with leggings and a long-sleeve T-shirt (which don't even have to match). Then come the accessories of your choice: headbands, eye masks, chest letters, capes, lightning bolts, and belts. 

Print the Lightning Bolt Template
Print the Star Template
Print the Alphabet Templates
Print the Planet Template
Print the Headband and Cuff Template

Bring a gaggle of helium-filled jack-o'-lantern balloons to life near the refreshment table in no time. Draw simple features onto inflated balloons with permanent marker. Choose an assortment of geometric shapes that are easy to create freehand.

Turn ordinary containers into glow-in-the-dark bottles of Cyanide Soda, Elixir of Doom Gin, Toxic Tonic, and Black Death Vodka using our clip art and self-adhesive labels.

These goofy jack-o'-lanterns make quick, sweet party favors. 

Print the pumpkin clip art on card stock and cut out. Trim top edge with pinking shears and use invisible tape to secure it around a little bag of candy corn. Curl cloth-covered floral wire around a pencil to create a "stem," and use to close bag.

This eyeglasses-based costume is fast, fun, and sufficiently understated for the self-conscious. Attach a yellow beak to brown eyeglasses frames, and then brown and ivory feathers near the hinges of the frames. 

Create a scary swarm of bats throughout your home with just tissue paper and scissors.

Fill old-style specimen jars with water, and add enough food coloring to produce a suitably supernatural tint. Arrange lotus pods, poppy pods, and coneflower heads within. No evil will darken your doorstep with these eerie elixirs on display.

Turn lopsided pumpkins into baskets filled with fresh flowers using our carving template.

Find More Easy Pumpkin Templates

These shimmering, no-carve pumpkins are still Halloween showstoppers -- and they last longer than your average Jack-o'-Lantern. Use fall hues to glitter pumpkins for a magical display.

Make these paper wigs out of a plastic grocery bag, newspaper, and masking tape for a fun and easy way to add to your Halloween costume.

Make a festive tablecloth in a cinch using layered crepe paper and polka dots cut from streamers. 

Alternate layers of orange, black, and white table crepe paper. Then, punch various size holes from streamers. Use punched circles to decorate top layer. Cut scalloped edge from black streamer and use it to trim top of table.

Creating your own googly-eyed monsters has never been easier. Use small pumpkins, our mouth template, plastic eyeballs, and a thumbtack.

Assembled from yarn, rope, and foam balls, these homespun pumpkin decorations are simple to make. For each, gently press top and bottom of a Styrofoam ball against a work surface to flatten ends (so ball doesn't roll). Wrap orange roving around ball. Insert a T pin into top. Tie cream or orange mohair yarn to pin and cover ball. Cut a length of rope; place over pin, and help kids attach with a hot-glue gun, pressing to secure.

These clever trick-or-treat bags are simple to construct and help keep children safe because they glow in the dark. Choose from our ghost, bat, spider, and web shapes.

Add a touch of spooky at the last second. Adorn everything including tote bags, T-shirts, treat bags, favors with a skull stamp made from a potato.