Handmade Halloween Ideas

Get photo tips, recipes, crafting tutorials, and everything else you need to create memorable—and affordable—Halloween fun.

Want even more easy ideas for handmade tricks and treats? Download our 12-page Handmade Halloween book filled with how-tos and tips.

You can print and enjoy it, or download a copy to your desktop for reference and inspiration.

Create boo-tiful, boutique-quality greetings at home. Just type in your party details and print!

Our Halloween invitations are splendidly spooky and frighteningly easy to make. Choose a chilling card design from our gallery to create your own ghoulish party invitations.

You can print your Halloween greetings on HP Advanced Photo Paper, available in several sizes. This sturdy, glossy, and even water-resistant photo paper dries instantly for quick photo handling, passing around, and stacking.

This Spine-Tingling Skeleton Decoration is several feet long and looks store-bought—but you can print it at home.

Cast a ghoulish gleam with Hair-Raising Lanterns.

Turn your home into a haunted house using these spooky printable decorations from HP Creative Studio’s Halloween Shop.

• Place a Spine-Tingling Skeleton Decoration on your front door to welcome—and spook—visitors.
• Provide a little trick for treat-seeking guests with printable Floating Monsters hanging from your home’s eaves.
• String Hair-Raising Lanterns in any space to create an instant Halloween atmosphere.

Up the “Ewwww” factor and make creepy spider webs by shredding white panty hose.

Or make your own paper spider webs to use for décor, place settings, and family fun. (It’s similar to making paper snowflakes.) Get a complete step-by-step in our free Handmade Halloween book.

Before you begin printing decorations, be sure you have plenty of ink on hand. To save money, consider HP high-capacity (XL) ink cartridges, which allow you to get up to three times more prints with fewer cartridge replacements. ¹

Get free next business day shipping with no minimum when you order from the HP Home & Home Office online store.

These fun appetizers will fly off the table.

Find more spooky, easy recipes using the recipe print apps on your HP Photosmart e-All-in-One printer.

Looking for finger food—or perhaps even some food shaped like fingers—for your Halloween celebration?

The MyRecipes.com Print App—available on select HP Photosmart e-All-in-One printers—contains recipes from Cooking Light, Real Simple, and other popular publications.

You’ll find recipes like Bat Bites, which couldn’t be easier. Mash together cream cheese, goat cheese and pesto, shape into balls, and roll in pepper and/or poppy seeds. Use olives for bat eyes and tortilla chips for wings, and you’re done. (Download the Handmade Halloween book for full instructions and more recipes.)

SEE IT: Watch how HP Print Apps work in these videos.

Ask people to pose in costume or with props, and send them home with instant photo memories of all the fun.

Photos make excellent party favors—and you can turn photo-taking into a game, too. Have your digital camera and a photo printer on hand. The backdrop can be as simple as a sheet. Then get people to pose in costume or with props, and send them home with instant photo memories of all the fun.

Some photos are too special to wait and share later! With HP ePrint, you can instantly e-mail photos of your little goblins to an HP ePrint-enabled printer from nearly any mobile device. Check out the HP Photosmart buying guide to find a printer with ePrint.

SEE IT: Watch this video to see ePrint in action.

When printing things like masks or carving templates, try using thicker paper, like HP Brochure and Flyer Paper—it will make the templates easier to trace around and the masks more durable. I’d rather have the CTA in the body rather than in the caption.

To take pumpkin pictures that really shine, you need to let the light through—and add extra wattage.

• Cut extra-large openings for eyes and big, jagged smiles.
• Use two or three candles inside the pumpkin.
• Try placing a small flashlight in the pumpkin.

These free pumpkin carving templates can help you create a variety of designs—ghosts, spiders, cats, and a gallery of faces both spooky and silly.

If your kiddos aren’t old enough to wield a carving knife, print the templates on heavy paper. Let the little ones glue or tape them to the pumpkin. Or turn it into a game and play a version of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.” You’ll find a step-by-step in our Homemade Halloween PDF book.

Whether photographing costumes, decorations, parties or Halloween parades, fill the frame with your subject.

The simplest way to get better Halloween pictures: Fill the frame with your subject.

A vampire’s toothy smile, ghosts flapping their arms, or a panoramic expanse of orange pumpkins in a field could all make a great subject, but not all together. By doing this, you’ll avoid a common photography error: cluttered pictures with no discernable subject.

Halloween may only come once a year, but you can make your memories last much longer by using high-quality HP Premium Plus Photo Paper, which features exceptional fade resistance and produces vibrant, professional-quality photos that last for generations. Get tips for printing 4" x 6" and 5" x 7" photos.

When taking your kids trick-or-treating, position yourself so that you can photograph them as they receive treats.

If you’re welcoming children to your door, work with a partner: Have one person open the door and greet the kids while the other snaps away.

And don’t let common photo problems like red-eye ruin your fantastic pictures. Get advice on removing red-eye and evaluating your photos before editing and discover which editing techniques can fix your photo flaws.

Find more general photo composition tips in our Homemade Halloween book and at the HP Digital photography center.

Need a last-minute costume for a party at the office or school? Nothing is easier than printing a mask.

Avast ye, last-minute landlubbers! Make the Pirate Party Kit and craft your own pirate hat and eye patch.

You’ll find a variety of instant-print mask designs—including old-fashioned monsters, space aliens, and fanciful masquerade masks.

Or print the Pirate Party Kit and craft your own pirate hat and eye patch. Add a tattered white T-shirt, either cinched with a rope belt or topped with a black vest. Boots can complete the picture and are perfect for a chilly October night.

You can get printable decorations, masks, pumpkin carving templates, games, and activities—all from the Halloween Printables app on your Web-connected printer.

Print apps provide shortcuts to content, allowing users to print online materials without using a PC. You can print maps and directions, craft and coloring pages, photos from Snapfish.com, or even the latest news.

Learn more about Web-connected printing and HP Print Apps. Or, check out the HP Photosmart e-All-in-One buying guide to explore and compare Web-connected printers.

Use your inkjet printer and HP Iron-on Transfers to create custom costumes. Let’s put the CTA in the body, not the CTA.

Does your child want to be a fairy? Pair a flower wand from the Flower Fairy Party Kit with a Strawberry Fairy Iron-on for a magical ensemble.

Does your child long to be a 6’ NBA All-star? Use NBA Iron-ons to transform fans into their favorite team’s players. Add a basketball and some black sport shorts and you’re off.

Get more tips for printing on fabric.

You can relive the memories any time you want by archiving your favorite photos in a scrapbook! Learn more about using photos for scrapbooking.

Halloween is a perfect time for capturing once-a-year moments (especially of your little ones in their costumes) and sharing the photos with friends and family.

Visit the HP Creative Studio to find a Halloween Scrapbook, including pages, backgrounds, borders, photo corners, and stickers.

With a large-format printer like the HP Officejet 7500A Wide Format e-All-in-One, you aren't limited to 8.5" x 11" pages. You can print scrapbook pages on various paper types and sizes, including 12" x 12" and up to 13" x 19". Get more tips for printing 12" x 12" and 8" x 8" square scrapbook pages.

Print professional-quality photos at home with the touch of a finger.

If you’re looking for a photo printer but frightened by all the options, check out the HP Photosmart buying guide.

You can compare and contrast and find a printer that allows you to print content directly from the Web without a PC using Print Apps.² Most HP Photosmart e-All-in-Ones also feature HP ePrint—so you can print your favorite photos to any ePrint-enabled printer from virtually anywhere. ³

Get up to three times more pages than standard size HP cartridges.¹

Before you begin printing invitations and decorations, be sure you have plenty of ink on hand. To save money, consider HP high-capacity (XL) ink cartridges, which allow you to get up to three times more pages than standard size HP cartridges. ¹ Plus, get free shipping next business day with no minimum when you order from the Home and Home office store on HP.com

Now that you’re stocked up on ink, get creative! Download our 12-page Handmade Halloween book filled with how-tos and tips.

Not sure what supplies to get for your printer? Just enter your printer information, or the toner or ink you need, to find the specific supplies for your particular printer directly from the HP Home & Home Office online store!