Family Friendly Halloween Decor
Last updated August 21, 2024
Danielle’s blog, Finding Silver Pennies, is all about restoring her historic home, painting furniture and sharing all she has learned along the way. She loves blue and white, long walks on the beach, her coastal town, her little family and English accents.
A Note From The Home Depot
Danielle Driscoll of Finding Silver Pennies has always loved celebrating Halloween. As a part of the Halloween/Harvest Style Challenge, we sent Danielle classic Halloween decor and let her make it her own.
Read on to find out how Danielle achieved a classic Halloween look that is also family friendly.
Table of Contents
DIY Witch Silhouette
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. When I was a little girl my mom used to make me the most elaborate costumes – a mermaid, a wicked witch with a green face mask (ouch! It tightened on my face as I trick or treated around the neighborhood), a bride, Michael Jackson. I was always so excited to get dressed up and go out that I didn’t even want to eat dinner.
Fast forward a few decades and I still feel exactly the same way about Halloween. It’s rubbed off on my boys. They love getting dressed up and decorating our home.
They played a huge role helping decorate our home in this challenge. In fact, our oldest drew the witch that we used to create the silhouette.
We live in a coastal town and everyone here is crazy for Halloween. The main street in the harbor is shut off to traffic and the merchants fling open their doors for early trick or treating. Once it gets dark, people come up our hill to continue Halloween!
For The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge I knew I wanted to focus on classic Halloween decor to go with our historic home. I also didn’t want to make it look too scary or gory.
When the surprise box from The Home Depot arrived, I was so excited because it came with amazingly realistic 36 in. LED Tombstone Assortment (Set of 4), a fog machine, fog machine liquid and a fog tube accessory kit.
My boys were so excited about the fog machine, as was I, because it instantly adds a creepy, Halloween vibe. We had so much fun playing with it and the gravestones. The gravestones light up, which is fun at night, too.
We got busy planning out our haunted front yard.
DIY Witch Silhouette
We created a witch based on our son’s sketch. In his sketch he included a cat and a cauldron.
Step 1
First, sketch out some ideas on paper. We all were drawing witches and cats. Then we enlarged the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette we created a grid on the drawing.
Step 2
Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.
Step 3
Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.
Step 4
Fourth, use a jigsaw to cut out the silhouette.
Step 5
Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.
I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.
Step 6
Finally, build a support (see below for step-by-step instructions).
Isn’t she spooky! We love her nose!
How to Build a Support for the Witch
Step 1
First, sketch out some ideas on paper. Then enlarge the sketch using a photocopier. In order to scale the drawing for a large silhouette, create a grid on the drawing.
Step 2
Second, enlarge the drawing onto plywood. We used pressure treated wood because we thought it would last longer in the elements. We used ¾-in. plywood because it’s sturdier. Create a grid on the plywood to match your grid on the paper. Draw image in chalk.
Step 3
Third, go over the chalk with a sharpie pen. Once you start cutting out the silhouette the motion of the saw might shake off your chalk. Sharpie is also easier to see while you’re cutting.
Step 4
Fourth, use a jigsaw to cut out the silhouette.
Step 5
Fifth, paint the silhouette with black spray paint, we used Rustoleum’s All Surface Satin Black with Paint and Primer in one.
I love this spray paint because of the specialty designed nozzle – my finger doesn’t get tired and I don’t get paint all over my hands. Allow it to dry.
The fog machine adds to the effect as does the gravestones.
Next up we thought it would be fun to make paper lanterns to line our brick walkway to lead the way up to our front door. These were so easy to make and didn’t cost much at all.
DIY Paper Lanterns
The Home Depot has really cute Halloween stencils that are miniature and great for smaller projects. They’d be cute on treat bags for a halloween party, banners, pillows or lanterns as we created. I picked up some paper lunch bags to stencil.
It’s more fun with a little ninja helper, too!
Here you can see the pretty lanterns lining our walkway to greet trick or treaters.
DIY Nature-Inspired Fall Wreath
The other DIY project we did was a wreath for the front door. I wanted to do something inspired by nature and I had a branch wreath down in the basement.
Here is a closer look at the wreath.
Here it is on the door.
Front Door Spiders
You’ll notice we added some spiders to our door. We wanted to give the appearance of spiders crawling across it.
We used WallPOP’s little spiders. We stuck them to the door and painted the trim surrounding it. They were so easy to apply, remove and reposition where needed. This is a great job for little ones to help with. My little Conor (the ninja) loved helping put the spiders on.
I wish you could hear him giggling as he did it. It was so sweet.
Add More Halloween Decor
Here’s a look at our yard decorated for Halloween.
We added a bag of bones in front of the gravestones. This set was great and came with an assortment of may different kind of bones, even some dinosaur bones! The kids were excited about that. I think each set is different. This skeleton’s eyes light up and are so creepy. I’ll show you them lit up a bit later on.
Our front steps are decorated with pumpkins and some fun lanterns from The Home Depot. These LED lanterns are battery operated. They give a spooky look once lit. They also look cute during the day. We used ones with spiders and witches to match our DIY witch.
Ferns and potato vines in our planters add softness to the overall look.
Each fall we carve pumpkins, but if you’re very busy and have a lot going on, The Home Depot has a few already cut, like this one. It is easy to plug in and gave lots of light without the worry of candles.
I also placed a caged raven on an old vintage stool. He talks and is so life-like.
Final Reveal
We enjoyed celebrating Halloween a tad earlier this year. It made it twice as fun!
The fog machine really adds to the ambience. I have a feeling we’re going to be using it a lot leading up to Halloween.
Here’s a look at some nighttime shots our new Halloween decor lit up.
See how eerie it looks at night with the red eyes on the skeleton and gravestone.
Add a little fog.
And DIY lanterns to light the way to lots of treats!
We can’t wait for Halloween now that all our DIY is done! I hope this gave you a few ideas of fun ways you can make your front yard more festive with your kids.
A huge thank you to The Home Depot for inviting me to take part in the Style Challenge. I had so much fun with my boys creating a spooky and classic Halloween front porch. Happy Halloween, everyone!
For more DIY Halloween and harvest ideas, see other articles in our Halloween Style Challenge series, and follow our Halloween Style Challenge board on Pinterest.
Visit The Home Depot’s online Halloween Decor Department for everything you need to decorate your home for Halloween and fall. Check out other scary skeleton decorations at The Home Depot.
This post was created in partnership with The Home Depot. The author may have received compensation for this article and associated images or video, potentially in the form of products and/or services. All expressed opinions and experiences are the author’s own words.
