Halloween is a holiday observed on October 31 of each year. In 2020, Halloween falls on a Saturday. The custom began with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, during which people dressed up as ghostbusters and lit bonfires. Pope Gregory III declared November 1st to be a day to honor all saints in the eighth century. Soon, some of the Samhain customs were incorporated into All Saints Day.

All Hallows Eve, and subsequently Halloween, was celebrated the previous evening. Halloween has developed into a day filled with events such as trick-or-treating, making jack-o'-lanterns, hosting parties, dressing up, and indulging in sweets.

1. Mansion of Mystery

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Photo: Parents

All you need to do to make this impressive haunted house is save every piece of cardboard that enters your house, including the boxes of pasta and toothpaste and the mountain of Amazon packages. Padded cardboard tube witches are a spooky replacement for standard dolls.

How to Make It

Stack various boxes together until you have the desired shape, then glue them together with craft or hot glue. Allow several hours for craft glue to dry. (The house in the picture is 35x25 inches and was built with about ten boxes.)

With acrylic craft paint, paint the boxes dark grey. Paint toilet paper and paper towel tubes at the same time. Allow to dry.

Assemble painted tubes into columns and spires. Half circles of black paper curled and taped into cones should be used to top the spires.

Bend a piece of cardboard into a V shape; hold that shape and trace a triangle twice onto another piece of flat cardboard. The triangles should then be cut out and glued or taped to the front and back of the folded cardboard V. Make more by repeating the process.

Allow to dry after painting the roof pieces black. Make a shingled roof pattern with orange puffy paint.

To make windowpanes, glue sets of four yellow squares or rectangles to the boxes. Make shutters out of cardboard or cardstock and glue them on.

Cut doors from cardboard or yellow paper and glue on beads for doorknobs.

Witches

Paint one-third of another toilet-paper tube green and two-thirds black. Allow to dry.

Cut a 2x4-inch piece of black or grey felt and fringe it with scissors to make the hair. Wrap your hair around the top of the tube and cut bangs across your brow. Glue into position.

With markers, draw or paint eyes, cheeks, and a mouth on the green section.

Cut a circle of black felt 1/2 inch wider than the diameter of the tube and glue it to the top for the hat. Make a cone out of a half-circle of felt and glue it on top.

As the witch's cape, wrap and glue a piece of black felt around the tube.

2. De Los Muertos House

The second inventive idea is a cardboard and duct tape house that folds flat for storage between play sessions. To give it a Day of the Dead theme, you and your child can make sugar skulls and altar accessories.

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Photo: Pinterest

How to Make It

Make two 12x16-inch pieces of cardboard. Then, cut each rectangle into a house shape along the side so that the sides are 10 in. tall and the center peak is 12 in. tall, as shown.

Paint the cardboard pieces in bright colors on both sides. Allow to dry.

Cut a 10-inch slit up the center of one piece, beginning at the bottom. Cut a 2-inch slit down the center of the other piece, beginning at the top. (These pieces will connect to form an X.)

Draw and cut out door shapes on the walls. (Optional: Leave one side of the door attached and bend it to make a working door.)

Slide the two cardboard pieces together to form the house.

Make an optional duct-tape border. Attach pieces of duct tape along the top edges, sticky sides together, leaving about a 3/4-in. overhang. Trim the overhang into scallop shapes (they don't have to be perfect!) and punch a hole in the center of each. Then, as shown, wrap a piece of duct tape around each vertical outside edge.

Add sugar-skull wall art (made from paper and stickers), a cardstock-and-string garland, mini tissue-paper flowers, paper-straw candles, and a colorful felt rug to the rooms.

3. Monster Town

To make this haunted high-rise, stack two boxes, wallpaper them with scrapbook paper and add a layer of paper slime to the front. Then have fun making goblins and accessories.

4239 haunted house beauty
Photo: ETSY

How To Make It

Cover the inside of a small shoebox (approximately 6x9x3 in.) and a square gift box (approximately 3x3x3 in.) with craft paper using double-stick tape. On the floors and ceilings, we used solid black, and on the walls, we used patterns.

Trace each box opening onto green paper with a pencil, then draw a wavy, drippy slime border within the traced shape, as shown. Each box's open side should be cut out and glued.

Add wall art (framed in straws), a Lego table slimed with puffy paint (don't worry; it peels right off! ), or a pendant lamp made with a mini paper cup and a yellow bead for the lightbulb to the room.

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