Deck the howls

Haunt your home with these five easy crafts for Halloween.

1. Seeing Things: Our monstrous wreath will keep an eye (or 10) on your kids. Cut the flat center from a plain white paper plate.

Cut teeth from the center. Paint the outer piece of the plate and let it dry. Glue the teeth to the inside of the ring. Glue on white pompoms, then glue black paper circles for pupils on the pompoms. Cut out and glue on two yellow paper horns.

2. Bitty Bats: Our easy-to-make bats are defrightful! Paint a wooden clothespin black using acrylic paint. While it's drying, go to familyfunmag.com/printables, download our wing template, and cut it out.

Use a pencil to trace two wings onto black cardstock. Cut them out. Fold over a tab on the base of each wing where shown and glue them to the sides of the clothespin.

3. Wonder Webs: Oh, what a web we weave when making these for Halloween! Paint three craft sticks silver and let them dry. Glue them together at the center, forming an asterisk shape.

Tie one end of a length of yarn (we used about 2 yards for one web) to the center of the sticks. Wrap it around the other spokes, then move outward, wrapping the sticks. Tie off the yarn and add a plastic spider.

4. Feline Frights: Black paper transforms a string of lights into a sinister group of cats. Download our template from familyfunmag.com/printables. Trace the shape onto black cardstock, marking the placement of the eyes.

Cut out several heads and use a hole punch to make eyes. Insert bulbs from a string of electric lights into the holes.

5. Pretty Pumpkins: Plastic bottles give these everlasting squash their shape. Cut the bottom 2 or 3 inches from 2 plastic bottles, with one bottom about a half inch taller than the other. Discard the tops.

Cut 4 1-inch slits into the taller section. Crumple orange tissue paper and place it inside both sections. Slide the shorter section over the taller.

Cut a triangle from a brown paper bag and twist it into a gnarled stem. Glue it to the top.

This story was originally published October 21, 2015 at 9:30 PM with the headline "Deck the howls ."