October 2025

7 Halloween Nature Crafts For The Homestead

Looking for some simple Halloween nature crafts to entertain the kids & decorate your homestead? Check out these seven nature-inspired crafts using leaves, sticks, gourds, pinecones, hay bales and pumpkins (of course).

Halloween in the country, with hayrides, big starry skies, bonfires, late-night ATV rides and plenty of room to party and trick or treat, can be extra magical.

Unique Halloween decorations can help enhance this effect, but can be hard to come by, especially if you’re trying to avoid bringing more cheap, plastic, imported seasonal decor into your home.

That’s where decorating with simple natural elements can be a game-changer.

These seven Halloween nature crafts are made from everyday items you collect from your backyard, backwoods or local trails and are quick and easy to make.

7 Halloween Nature Crafts For The Homestead

These seven Halloween nature crafts are simple and sturdy enough to assemble a few days (or weeks) ahead, or as part of a Halloween party or as a lesson/craft during homeschool or co-op day.

All you need, in most cases, are specific items from nature, a glue gun, a few craft store basics like paint, googly eyes or pipe cleaners and some willing helpers (cue the kiddos) to create a magical, spooky and unique Halloween scene at your home or homestead.

1. Painted Pumpkins

This one is a classic and always a hit with young children, who can’t yet carve their own pumpkin.

Simply supply a small pumpkin, such as a sugar pie, with a selection of washable paints for younger children or acrylics for older children.

Don them in aprons or smocks, and let them create their own painted pumpkins to display indoors (washable paint) or outdoors.

2. A String & Stick Spiderweb

This craft, from Mother Natured only requires three sticks and some strong fishing line, or yarn to create a spooky web.

Simply collect a few small to medium sticks with your kiddos, tie them in a twinkle-like formation with string or yarn, then continue tying and weaving to make a web.

You can make several of these to hang in trees, on your front porch or in your children’s playrooms.

They also make fun gifts to give out with Halloween treats.

3. Clothespin Leaf Bat or Bat Garland

Leaf Bat Craft

Nothing says spooky Halloween night like bats.

These ones are adorable and easy to make into a long chain-like garland or a lifelike branch with sleeping bats. They’re really cute strung across a chandelier or cased opening.

If you don’t have old-fashioned clothespins, you could also use an old toilet paper roll painted black for the body, hole punch it to thread the string and attach the leaves at the back.

What You’ll Need:

8-12 regular clothespins (the spring-loaded clothespins work best as their shape looks like bat ears and a body, but you can use old-fashioned ones too)
Black paint or spray paint
Enough maple leaves (or other leaves with points that resemble bat wings) to make wings for the bats (16-24 leaves).
Small googly eyes (optional)
A long string or a long branch

To make:

Paint or spray paint the clothespins black. Let dry completely.
Paint or spray paint the maple leaves black, let dry on one side and paint the second side. Let dry completely.
Using a hot glue gun, glue the maple leaves to the clothespins, creating bat wings.
Add optional googly eyes to the bat’s face, or omit for a more shadowy figure.
If you want just one bat, you're done! For a garland, position and hang your garland string, or long branch, where you’d like it and pin on the bats. You can do them upside down, right-side up, whatever you like.

4. Leaf Ghosts

This one is super easy.

Grab a bunch of random leaves, any shape will do, along with some white paint and black paint.

The leaves can be fresh or pressed, but must be dry/not rained on or dewy. Keep in mind, fresh leaves are less fragile and work best for children.

Place them on a big piece of butcher paper or a wipeable tablecloth and paint them all white using washable paint, acrylic paint or spray paint.

Young children love this activity, as it requires very little skill and allows them to be messy. Just make sure they use washable paint!

Let dry and paint the other side.

Once both sides are painted, use black paint to add spooky eyes and a wailing mouth and you’ve got yourself a ghost.

These can be hung on walls, made into a ghost collage, strung from sticks to make a ghost mobile or hung from trees or bushes.

5. Pinecone Spiders

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These little spooks come together with just pinecones, black, green or red pipe cleaners for legs, a glue gun, pair of scissors and googly eyes.

You can display them on any surface, hang them from fishing line in trees or on your porch or even stick them in your stick and string web.

One Little Project has a simple step-by-step tutorial.

You can also use pinecones to create ghosts, witches, owls, and other spooky creatures.

6. Gourd Candle Holders

We loved this clever and sustainable idea from Green Choice Lifestyle on how to transform small gourds into ghostly candle holders.

Simply hollow out a bunch of gourds that can sit flat, paint spooky jack-o-lantern faces on them, stuff in a small candle (like a tea light) and use them to light up your Halloween table or display.

When you’re done, compost the gourds.

7. Halloween Hay Bale Art

If you want to go big and ultra-country, get your hands, tractor or ATV on a round hay bale and dress it up for Halloween!

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Round bales can be spray-painted or wrapped and turned into jack-o-lanterns, Frankenstein and other monsters, big spiders (use corrugated pipe for legs), ghosts, black cats and whatever else your imagination comes up with.

A quick internet search of “hay bale art” will yield loads of ideas and tutorials.

This is a great way to decorate a big piece of property or yard, without the maintenance, hassle and ultimate waste of using blowups.