Easy Halloween Decorations: Pass the Popsicle Sticks Please!

Halloween is riiiiight around the corner. So what if I just barely got my Halloween decorations up this week? At least they are up! 

One little treasure I found in the bottom of my Halloween decoration box was these cute little ornaments the kids and I made last year. My children felt that my collection of Halloween decorations was sorely lacking and wanted to supplement with something homemade. I had a ton of Popsicle sticks sitting in my craft drawers. With the help of my trusty glue gun and some paint we had some new Halloween decorations in no time. Very easy, a little messy when the kids got involved, but loads of festive fun for everybody.

We made pumpkins and Frankensteins. The Frankies were my favorite so that's the one I'll show the tutorial for. You could probably figure out how to make these simply from looking at the finished result, but for those who are craft-challenged like me, here's the how-to:













Arrange about 6-8 Popsicle sticks *** in a row. Don't worry too much about everything being nice and neat and even. The fun of Halloween is that "messy accidents" look "spooky" and "intentional".

Hot glue one stick across the row of sticks to secure everything in place. Make sure to leave some of the stick out on both sides of the row of sticks. This will serve as Frankie's bolts.

Flip the whole thing over so that the one glued on stick is in back.

Paint and let dry.

When dry paint the bolts black and paint on hair. Let dry.

Go crazy decorating Frankie however you want. I used my paintbrush to flick black paint over the entire face.

I cut out yellow paper circles for the eyes and glued them on. I also glued on black pony beads. A black sharpie marker worked perfectly for the mouth. My kids used the marker and other beads to add facial features.

A layer of Modge Podge sealed the deal nicely. I also hot glued some string on the back so that Frankie could be easily displayed. Right now all our Frankies and pumpkins are hanging on our dining room curtain rods with the help of some fishing line.

The pumpkins are just as simple to make with a few variations. I used more sticks (11 to be exact) in the row of sticks and glued on two sticks in the back in different spots to make the decoration more secure.

We used black paper and wood triangles for the eyes, nose, and mouth. I had some spare fake greenery that we glued on for the pumpkin stems and leaves.

Simple and cute. Just the way I like all my crafts.

Happy Halloween everybody!

***Unless you happened to save all those sticky Popsicle sticks from summertime you can find Popsicle sticks for sale at any craft store or Walmart's craft area.