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My kitchen used to be the sad room in October. Living room full of ghosts, porch dripping in fake cobweb, and then you walk past the fridge and it is just a fridge. A calendar. A magnet shaped like a lemon. Nothing.
So two Octobers ago I started small. One printed towel design clipped over the oven handle, a couple of bat cutouts above the cabinets where nobody could reach to knock them down. My neighbor noticed before my own partner did, which tells you everything about who actually looks around a kitchen. The trick is the kitchen takes almost no decor to feel done, because half of it is already shapes you have on a counter anyway.
Most of what is below started as a file from an indie design shop, printed at home or sent to a friend with a Cricut who owes me. Some of these are affiliate links, so if you grab one I get a tiny cut and you pay the same. Coffee in hand. Let’s go.
The towel PNG bundle I started with
This was my gateway. A bundle of towel designs you print onto transfer paper and press onto a plain flour-sack towel, and suddenly the boring towel hanging off the oven is part of the show. I did three from this set one Sunday afternoon while a pot of chili sat ignored on the back burner.
I used a cheap pack of white towels from the dollar store, the thin kind, and honestly the thin ones take the press better than the fluffy ones. The fluffy loops fight the transfer.
One nitpick. The files are big and dark, lots of deep black ink, so if your home printer is anything like mine you will watch the black cartridge die in real time. I did the last one at the library and pretended I was printing a resume.
Round two of towels, because one was never going to be enough
Same idea, different art, and by this point I had a system going. This bundle leans a little more cute than creepy, which is exactly what you want hanging next to a toaster. Nobody wants to dry their hands on a screaming skull.
I pressed these onto a set of waffle-weave towels my partner swore were too nice to ruin. They were not ruined. They are now the only towels guests compliment.
The one thing. The designs are sized generously, so on a small towel you lose the edges. I shrank them to about 70 percent before printing and they sat much better. Measure your towel first, it takes ten seconds and saves you a wasted transfer sheet.
Towels for the window ledge and the open shelf
I did not hang every towel from this bundle. A couple I just folded into thirds and stacked on the open shelf by the window, design facing out, like a little display nobody is allowed to actually use until November. Decor disguised as function.
The art in this one has a softer palette, more muted orange than candy orange, which I prefer in a room with white cabinets. Bright orange next to white reads like a traffic cone.
Nitpick, and it is a small one. The PNG backgrounds are transparent, which is correct, but if you print onto colored transfer paper you will see the paper through the thin parts of the design. Stick with white transfer sheets and you are fine.
The set that ended up on a tote, not a towel
Confession. I bought this towel bundle and then pressed half of it onto a plain canvas tote instead, because I ran out of towels and got impatient. It worked. Now I have a grocery bag that scares the cashier in a good way.
For the ones I did keep as towels, the designs are bold enough to read from across the kitchen, which matters when the towel is hanging on the far side of the island.
My gripe. A few of the files in this bundle are very similar to each other, like the same ghost wearing slightly different hats. Not a dealbreaker, but if you were hoping for ten wildly different prints, it is more like four ideas with variations.
The funny one that gets read out loud at parties
Every kitchen needs one towel with a dumb joke on it. This is that towel. It has a little Halloween pun and I will not spoil it, but a party guest read it out loud last year and three people groaned, which is the highest honor a kitchen towel can receive.
I printed this single design on a flat tea towel and hung it dead center on the oven, the one spot everyone faces while they wait for the oven timer.
One catch. The text-heavy design needs a crisp print or the joke gets muddy. I bumped my printer to the high-quality setting and it came out sharp. On the draft setting the letters bled and the punchline looked like a smudge, which is its own kind of horror.
The last towel bundle, for the people who decorate the whole house
By the time I found this bundle I had run out of towels, oven handles, and patience, so a couple of these went into a frame on the kitchen counter instead. Print, trim, drop into a frame you already own, done. Faster than a press and no heat involved.
The art here is a little more detailed, almost illustrated, which actually reads better framed than pressed onto fabric where the fine lines can get lost.
The nitpick. The files come in one big folder with names like a license plate, so set aside five minutes to open each one and figure out which is which. A preview sheet would have saved me a lot of squinting at thumbnails.
Wall cutouts for the empty space above the cabinets
Here is where I answer the eternal question of what to do above the cabinets. You put cutout bats and shapes up there. This is a laser-cut bundle, so I sent the files to a friend who has the machine and a garage that smells permanently of singed wood.
We did these in thin plywood and I painted them flat black, no glitter, because glitter above a stove is a future I do not want to clean. They lean against the wall up high and you only ever see the silhouette, which is the point.
My one complaint. The bundle assumes you have a laser cutter or know someone, and if you do not, these files are not much use to you. For a pure print person, skip to the SVG and PNG options. For the cutter crowd, the shapes are clean and cut without a fight.
The 3D pieces that stand up on the counter
This one is a step up in effort and a step up in payoff. The files build little standing 3D decor pieces, the kind that sit on a flat surface and cast a shadow instead of lying flat on a wall. My friend ran these on her CNC and we glued the layers together at her kitchen table while her cat tried to steal the pieces.
I put the finished ones on the windowsill above the sink, where the afternoon light comes through and throws the shapes onto the counter. That shadow is the whole reason to bother.
The honest note. Assembly takes real time. The layered pieces have a lot of small parts and we lost one tiny tab under the table and never found it. Read the layer order before you start gluing, or you end up with a 3D pumpkin that leans like it is tired.
The SVG version for the Cricut people
Same wall-decor spirit but as SVG cut files, which means a Cricut or Silhouette can handle them, no garage laser required. I cut these from black cardstock, the heavy 110 lb kind, and taped them straight onto the wall over the breakfast nook.
Cardstock cutouts are lighter than wood, so a loop of washi tape holds them and peels off in November without taking the paint. That alone makes these my pick for renters.
Nitpick. Some of the intricate designs have very thin connecting bits that tear if you breathe on them. I weeded two of them too fast and had to recut. Go slow on the weeding and pick the chunkier shapes if your machine blade is getting dull.
The lace bat that became my favorite thing in the room
I saved the best for last and I mean it. This is a single lace bat SVG, all delicate cutwork, like a doily that grew teeth. I cut one big one for the wall above the kitchen table and a few small ones to scatter across the window.
I did mine in deep purple cardstock instead of black, on a whim, and against the white window frame the lace pattern reads so much better than plain black would. The light coming through the cutouts in the morning is genuinely lovely.
The one thing to know. This is the most detailed cut on the list, so a fresh blade is not optional. My first attempt on a tired blade came out fuzzy on the inner curves and I almost gave up. New blade, slower speed, and the second one was crisp enough that my partner asked if I bought it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can anyone stay at soho farmhouse?
No, Soho Farmhouse is a members-only club in the English countryside, so you generally need to be a Soho House member or be staying as a guest of one to book a room there.
It is a long way from printing bat cutouts in my kitchen, but if you searched that hoping for a moody English-cottage Halloween look, the lace and laser cutouts above will get your kitchen most of the way there for the price of a sheet of cardstock.
Can anyone go to soho farmhouse?
Day access is also tied to membership, so you cannot simply walk in off the road and wander the grounds. Members and their guests are the way in.
If the appeal was the cozy, candlelit, slightly witchy farmhouse feeling, you can fake a lot of that at home with warm cardstock tones, a few standing 3D pieces on the counter, and the lights turned low.
Should you decorate above kitchen cabinets?
I think yes, and the cabinet tops are honestly the best spot for Halloween because nobody can reach up there to knock things over. It is the safest shelf in the house for fragile cutouts.
Keep it to silhouettes. Bats, a row of cutout shapes, things that read from across the room without needing detail. Tiny pieces just look like clutter from down on the floor.
Do you decorate above kitchen cabinets?
I do, every October, and it is the first spot I fill. The laser-cut and SVG bats above go straight up there leaning against the wall, and they stay up high enough that I am not dusting them every other day.
The only rule I follow is leave a little breathing room. Cram the whole row and it stops looking spooky and starts looking like a storage problem.
Before You Print
If you do one thing this year, do the cabinet tops and one printed towel. That is maybe forty minutes and a couple of files, and it turns the room where everyone stands around with a drink into the room they actually comment on.
I still find a tiny CNC tab under that kitchen table sometimes. Different one each year, I swear, the table is haunted. Print something. Hang it a little crooked. Leave the kitchen light low.