Halloween Ideas: Easy Food and Crafts to Make Now

By Grandma Sandy | October 8, 2025

Over the years, we’ve done a fair amount of Halloween posts. Before we move on to planning for fall and winter holidays, let’s look back at our best Halloween ideas through the years.

Make a Halloween Diorama

Halloween diorama is made from a shoebox with a peephole.
Grandma peeps as Miss T arranges the Halloween scene inside.

A Halloween diorama is a fun project to do with the grandkids. It takes just a few craft materials and a shoe box. Kids will have fun building their spooky scene and then enjoy peeping into the world they create.

Make a Halloween Costume

Infant in bee costume made from a black sleeper with fabric wings and yellow felt stripes on the chest.
Miss T’s infant bee costume, stitched by grandma.

Here are two Halloween costumes I made for little ones who aren’t yet old enough to insist on being a firefighter or a superhero. I’ve provided instructions for turning an orange sweatshirt into a jack-o-lantern costume. But I also show a baby bee costume that I made for Miss T, with some general directions to get you started.

Cheese Cloth Ghosts

Almost life-size cheesecloth ghost hovers in a window.
Full size or tabletop size, cheesecloth ghosts are fun to make.

Cheesecloth ghosts are fun to make, if a little messy, as you get your hands into glue…but they’ll turn out so well! Updated from a post I wrote in 2023, this year, I expanded the how-to instructions to include almost life-size versions of the original tabletop ghosts.

Halloween Cupcakes

Milano cookies make the tombstones for these Halloween cupcake.
Milano cookie tombstones on crushed cookie “dirt” are crawling with gummy worms.

Make two versions of Halloween cupcakes with homemade or store-bought cupcakes. The Tombstone Cupcakes use Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies for the headstones. Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes feature pumpkins made with purchased marzipan almond candy dough available at most supermarkets.

Pumpkins are made by forming prepared marzipan candy dough into balls, making pumpkin ridges with a toothpick, and adding a clove stem.
Fashion pumpkins from purchased marzipan; use cloves for the stems.

Make Edible Halloween Candy Ghosts

For pretzel ghosts, dips pretzel sticks into melted white baking chips. For mummies, drizzle pretzel sticks with white chocolate.
Pretzel sticks become ghosts or mummies when decorated with melted white baking chips.

Make some easy candy ghosts. Use white baking chips to make pretzel ghosts and mummies by dipping or drizzing melted white chips on pretzel sticks.

Make Halloween Fingers Appetizers

String cheese is used to make creepy fingers. The blood dip is romesco sauce.
String cheese is used for Creepy Fingers; romesco sauce makes the “Blood” Dip.

Turn string cheese into creepy fingers. Serve with blood dip. This is a ghoulish appetizer to serve at a Halloween party or to tuck into a child’s school bento lunch.

Healthy Halloween Snacks

Peeled grapes, each embedded with a mini chocolate chip. make creepy eyeballs.
Peeled grape eyeballs are creepy; learn the trick for peeling grapes easily.

Halloween doesn’t have to be just about candy. Try these five healthy halloween snacks. They’re super-easy to make.

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Related posts:

  1. Spooky Halloween Crafts for Kids to Make Now
  2. Easy, Healthy Halloween Snacks Get into the Spirit
  3. How to Make Easy Halloween Snacks for the Grandkids
  4. Try these Great Fall Projects you Can Start on Now
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