DIY Halloween Props « Halloween Ideas

Halloween Food Hacks: How to Make Shrunken Heads Out of Apples & Potatoes

A great Halloween party depends on the right spooky ambience. Having some shrunken heads in strategic locations is an easy, fun way to get your guests in the right (frightened) frame of mind, and they require items you can easily find in your kitchen or at the local grocery store.

How To: Make Your Jack-O'-Lantern Shine Lite-Brite Bright This Halloween

I loved my Lite-Brite as a kid. There was just something about using those little multicolored pegs to make my own designs, and it's not exactly a secret that kids love anything that lights up (LED sneakers, anyone?). So how do you combine the old-school fun of Lite-Brite with pumpkin carving?

How To: Make a Flaming Pumpkin

Make a flaming pumpkin—great for your Halloween party! Watch the video for a step-by-step guide to create a really cool flaming Jack o' Lantern!

How To: Create a Cheap and Easy Burning Coals Prop for Halloween

Turning your abode into a haunted house of horror for Halloween takes a lot of time and work. Finding ways to build props on your own can save you some money that's better spent elsewhere.

How To: Carve an Amazing Halloween Pumpkin: 5 Sinister Jack-O’-Lantern Designs

Need help with some last-minute pumpkin carving? This guide will show you 5 different jack-o'-lantern designs just in time for Halloween.

News: How to Make a 'Magic Crystal Ball' Talking Hologram for Halloween

Give your ghoulish guests on Halloween a realistic spooky display of a head speaking inside a magic crystal ball. To make this even creepier, the talking head is the ghostly Madame Leota from Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion. To recreate this Halloween decor, you'll need a flatscreen TV, glass bowl, DVD player, a DVD of Leota's incantation, fake snakes, and some fabric.

How To: Make a Cheap & Easy Prop Skull

Skulls. What spooky Halloween décor or staging of Hamlet is complete without a skull or two popping up? For ghoulish special effect and/or setting a dramatic scene, skulls are absolutely integral. Well, with some artistry, hardware supplies, and a good dose of patience, you can create your own inexpensive prop skulls for use however you please.

How To: Build an Arduino-Based Voice Changer for Your Costume

If you're dressing up as someone iconic for Halloween, having the right voice can make or break your costume. Think about it—having a Darth Vader lookalike walk up to you and start talking like Alvin the Chipmunk would probably ruin the effect (and possibly be a little creepy).

How To: Prevent Carved & Uncarved Pumpkins from Rotting

Pumpkin carving and decorating is a favorite October pastime. After you've carved an amazing design or face into a pumpkin or two, you want to show it off through your window or set it out on your porch for the neighbors to see.

How To: Make a Cheap, DIY Fog Machine for Your Halloween Party

Need to add some spooky ambient fog to your super-scary Halloween party? Rather than shelling out money for a fog machine you'll probably only use once a year, make a trip to the nearest drug store and pick up a bottle of glycerin, a gallon of distilled water, a 2-liter bottle of cola, a disposable mini-pie tin, and a big candle in a jar.

How To: Make Realistic-Looking Fake Blood

Store-bought fake blood isn't too expensive, but the consistency and color are always the same. Real blood varies, from bright red when oxygenated (arterial blood) to deep, dark red when deoxygenated (venous blood), and it can be either thick or thin. So to achieve the best special effect, you're better off making a batch of DIY fake blood yourself to get the look and texture you're going for. And it's very simple to do.

Spiderbrella: How to Turn an Old Umbrella into a Man-Eating Spider

Spiders are my least favorite thing in the world. My second least favorite thing are cheap umbrellas. So, it's only fitting that the two work perfectly together as a creepy Halloween prop. In my video below, you'll see how to make a Spiderbrella, which is just the inside metal skeleton from the umbrella (which looks like a crawling spider), the umbrella's original black fabric, a couple Styrofoam balls, and some floral wire.

How To: These DIY Animatronic Jack-O'-Lanterns Sing Any Song That You Want

You can carve a pumpkin that smokes, has an LED display, or even one with the President's face on it, but if you want your jack-o'-lantern to really stand out—make it sing the Ghostbusters theme.

How To: Make Spooky, Last-Minute Jack-O'-Lanterns for Halloween Without Any Pumpkins

Love carving jack-o'-lanterns but hate dealing with all the gunky pumpkin seeds afterward? There are plenty of no-carve ways to decorate a pumpkin for Halloween, but what if you're sick of the orange pumpkin aesthetic and still want to get your hands dirty carving something?

How To: Make a Cardboard Captain America Shield for Halloween

As if Captain America: The First Avenger wasn't awesome enough, Marvel hit us with Captain America: The Winter Soldier this year, and it was even more spectacular than its predecessor. Grossing nearly $260 million in domestic sales, it's safe to say America loves Captain America and we'll probably get a heavy dose of Captain costumes this year for Halloween. Anyone can buy a costume from the store, but what will help set you apart from everyone else is a badass DIY Captain America shield, unm...

How To: This Skillfully Carved Jack-O'-Lantern Lets You Perform Experimental Pumpkin Brain Surgery

There are a lot of ways you can use pumpkins to decorate for Halloween. Of course, there's always the traditional jack-o'-lantern, but if you want to step it up a bit, you can make them glow in the dark, or put them to work for you by turning them into surveillance pumpkins to catch pranksters who prefer the 'trick' in 'trick-or-treat.'

Recipe for Horror: How to Make Fake Blood Capsules for Halloween

Want to go the extra mile with your scary costume this Halloween? Use fake blood capsules. At an opportune moment, fake blood can slowly dribble out of your vampiric mouth like you've just finished sucking blood out of an innocent bystander's neck. Or, if you're a zombie, it'll look like you've just finished feasting on the flesh of some poor non-zombie sap.

Halloween Food Hacks: How to Make Bloody Jello Worms the Right Way

The interwebs is a great source of information, but sometimes said information is not always legit. That can be frustrating when it comes to making fun food, costumes, and arts and crafts for Halloween, like this bowl of "bloody" gummy worms.

How To: Complete Your Captain America Avengers Costume with One of These DIY Shields

So you've decided to go as Captain America for Halloween and you've got everything from the helmet to a sweet pair of red boots. You've even managed to get your hands on some Super-Soldier Serum (or a realistic set of inflatable muscles), so you've got the physique, too. But what's missing? His shield! In order to make your Captain America costume legit, you cannot skip the shield. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to make yourself a DIY shield—so you can fend off enemies and look good doing it. ...

Lazy Jack-O'-Lanterns: 11 Creative Ways to Decorate a Halloween Pumpkin Without Carving

A well-executed jack-o'-lantern can be pretty damn impressive, but some of us lack the carving skills necessary to pull it off and end up disappointed. Sometimes you just don't want to put in all the time required to cut open a pumpkin, gut it, and chisel an elaborate face or cool design into it.