This post contains affiliate links. If you grab one of the printables I recommend, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
My sister thinks I have a sign problem. She is not wrong. There is one on the front door, one propped against the porch step, two taped to the kitchen window, and a tiny one by the candy bowl that just says take one (please). I started buying printed signs years ago and they were fine and also forty dollars each, and one warped in the rain by week two. Then I figured out I could print my own and stop crying about the rain.
Here is what I learned the hard way. A sign lives or dies on the paper. I print the indoor ones on 110 lb cardstock so they stand up in a frame without flopping, and the porch ones I run through a laminator I bought used for fifteen bucks. The lamination is the difference between a sign that survives October and a sad curled thing I peel off the door November 1st.
A few of these I printed last fall and a few I am hoarding for this year. They come as digital files from indie design shops, so you grab the file once and print it as many times as your ink holds out. Some of the links below are affiliate links, so if you grab one I get a tiny cut at no cost to you. Now the good stuff.
Twenty-Five Door Signs and the Problem of Too Many Good Ones
I opened this bundle thinking I would use maybe three. I used nine. There are twenty-five door signs in here and the trouble is they are all the kind of thing you want hanging somewhere, so I ended up rotating them through October like a tiny gallery on my front door.
These are SVG, so I cut a couple on my craft machine in black vinyl and stuck them straight on the glass storm door. The rest I just printed flat on cardstock and hung with a ribbon. My neighbor asked where I bought the witch one and would not believe me when I said I printed it on a Tuesday.
One nitpick. With twenty-five files you do spend a while scrolling to find the one you want, and the file names are not super descriptive, so I renamed my favorites in the folder so I could find them again next year.
A Tiny Crooked Village That Took Over My Bookshelf
These are the storybook kind. Little leaning houses, a crooked inn, a shop with a witch hat for a roof. I printed the set and stood them along the bookshelf in the hall, and now my kid narrates a whole plot about who lives in the inn every time she walks past.
I mounted each one on a scrap of foam board so they stand on their own without leaning against a book. Took twenty minutes and a glue stick. If you want them outside I would laminate first, but honestly these read as cozy-indoor to me, the kind of thing you light a small lamp next to.
The one gripe is the palette runs deep purple and muddy green, which I love, but it eats a lot of ink. My printer warned me about the magenta twice. Worth it, just print them in one batch so you are not babying the ink twice.
Wall Signs That Look Like I Hired Someone
This one is built for a laser cutter, and I will be honest, I do not own one. My partner does, in the garage, under a tarp, and I bribed him with pizza to cut me three of these in birch plywood. The cut lines are clean and the layered look is the part that sells it.
We hung the biggest one over the entry table and it genuinely looks like a real wooden sign from a fancy shop. If you have access to a laser, even a library makerspace one, this is the file that makes people think you spent money.
No laser? You can still print the designs flat and frame them, they hold up as art. But the laser-cut version is the whole point, so I would not grab this one unless you can cut it. Set expectations there.
Bookmarks for the Spooky Reading Pile by the Couch
Technically not a wall sign. I do not care. Every October I build a little stack of creepy paperbacks on the side table and these bookmarks live in them, and guests pull one out and end up taking it home, which is fine, that is the whole point.
I printed these on regular cardstock, ran them through the laminator, and punched a hole for a black ribbon tassel. The lamination matters here because bookmarks get handled and a bare paper one goes soft and floppy in a week.
The only thing I would change is the size. They print a touch wide for a mass-market paperback, so a corner peeks out the top. I trimmed about a quarter inch off mine and they tucked in clean after that.
Fake Postage Stamps for the Party Invites I Mail Too Late
I send paper invites for the movie night every year and every year I send them late, and these faux postage stamps are how I make the late envelope look like I planned it. Little perforated-style spooky stamps, raven, moon, jack-o-lantern, you stick them in the corner and suddenly the envelope has a whole vibe.
I printed mine on sticker paper so I could peel and stick. If you only have plain paper, a glue stick works, just cut around each stamp with the wavy scissors if you have them for that fake-perforated edge. My kitchen table looked like a tiny post office for an evening.
One catch. They are sized small, which is correct for stamps, but my printer struggled to hold detail that tiny and one design came out a little muddy. Print a test page first and check the small ones before you commit the whole sheet.
A Second Bookmark Set Because One Is Never Enough Here
Yes, a second bookmark file. I have a problem and we have established that. This set comes as PNG, four designs, and they lean cuter than the spooky stack, more friendly-ghost than haunted-house, so these are the ones I leave out when my niece comes over and wants one of her own.
Because they are PNG you just drop them into a doc, size them, and print, no cutting software needed. I fit four to a page, printed on cardstock, no lamination this time because these are for the kids and they will be wrecked by Halloween anyway.
The nitpick is small. PNG means a fixed size, so if you blow them up too big they go a little soft at the edges. Keep them at bookmark scale and they stay crisp. I learned that by making one giant test ghost that looked like fog.
The Door Sign Bundle I Reach For First Every Year
This is an older set and it is still the one I open first. The designs are simpler, more classic, less trendy, and that is exactly why they hold up. A clean welcome our haunted home type sign that does not look dated the way some of the busier ones do after a season.
I print the main one big, frame it in a black eight by ten I keep just for this, and lean it on the porch step where the trick-or-treaters can read it from the path. Heavy paper, simple frame, done. That is the trick I keep telling people.
The one flaw is the file is the older lower-resolution kind, so I would not print these poster-size. At eight by ten they are sharp. Push past that and you start to see it soften, so keep them at frame scale.
Apothecary Labels That Turned My Pantry Jars Into Poison
These labels are how I turned six boring kitchen jars into a witch pantry on the kitchen window shelf. Eye of newt, bat wings, graveyard dust. I peeled the real labels off some old spice jars, stuck these on, and filled them with whatever, dried pasta, lentils, who is checking.
I printed them on sticker paper and they wrapped around the jars no problem. If you want them to look properly aged, brush a little cold coffee over the printed sheet before you cut, let it dry, and they go from new to dug-up-from-a-cellar. My partner did not notice they were jars of rice for two weeks.
The only snag is the labels run a bit dark, so on a brown glass jar the text gets hard to read. I stuck mine on clear and pale jars and it was fine. Just think about what is behind the label.
The Rainy Afternoon Lifesaver Stuffed in My Bag
This is not a wall sign and I am including it anyway because it saved a rainy afternoon. Mazes, spot the ghost, a little word search, color pages. When the porch plans got rained out and three kids were bouncing off the walls, I printed this whole pack and bought myself a quiet hour.
I keep a stack pre-printed in a folder in my bag through October because the moment always comes. Black and white, so it barely touches the color ink, which my wallet appreciates. Hand a kid a maze and a crayon and you get peace.
The nitpick is some of the pages skew young, so my older niece breezed through the easy maze and got bored. Look through and pull the harder pages for the bigger kids and the simple ones for the little ones. Sort before you print.
The Pumpkin Boo Sign That Got the Most Photos
This was the surprise hit. A cut-style pumpkin and boo set, the kind of layered design that looks like real cut wood. I almost scrolled past it. Then I cut it and hung it and it became the thing people stopped to look at on the way in.
It is SVG sized for cutting, so I ran it on my craft machine in orange and black cardstock, layered the pieces, and glued them onto a plain board. The dimension is what does it, the boo letters sit a little proud of the pumpkin and catch the porch light. Took me a slow evening with a glue pen.
One honest nitpick. The layering means a lot of tiny pieces, and I lost one little pumpkin stem to the floor and never found it. Cut a spare of the small bits while you have the machine running. Future you will be grateful.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is halloween banner good battle cats?
Different kind of Halloween here, friend. I make paper banners and signs for actual doorways, not for the Battle Cats game, so I cannot rank the in-game one for you.
What I can say is a printed paper banner is a great cheap win for a real door. Print the letters on cardstock, string them on twine, hang it slightly crooked on purpose. Costs almost nothing.
Do halloween decorations go on sale?
The store stuff goes deep on sale the week after Halloween, like seventy percent off November 1st, which is when I stock up on ribbon and frames for next year.
Printable files are a different game. They do not really go on sale the same way, but you print one file as many times as you want, so the cost per sign drops every time you hit print. That is the real discount.
Can halloween decorations get wet?
Paper signs, not on their own. A bare printed sign on my porch turned to mush in one rainy night and I learned my lesson.
Laminate anything going outside, or slip it into a cheap dollar-store frame with the glass front. I laminate every porch sign now and they shrug off rain and morning dew all month. The indoor ones I leave bare.
Is halloween banner worth it battle cats?
Still on the game, and still not my world, so I will be straight with you and say I do not play it and cannot judge that banner.
If you wandered in looking for a real banner to print and hang, though, you are in the right place. A printable letter banner is one of the cheapest, fastest ways to make a door look done. Print, string, hang, candle nearby but not too near.
Before You Print
So that is my sign pile, the framed porch one and the witch pantry jars and the two bookmark sets I cannot stop printing. None of it cost much and all of it came off a tired printer in my office while a candle burned on the desk.
Start with one. Print it on the heaviest paper you have, frame it or laminate it, and lean it somewhere people walk past. Then watch how fast you end up with a sign by the candy bowl too.