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My daughter is seven and she has Opinions about Halloween. Specifically, the craft afternoon has to happen the first rainy Saturday in October, the snacks have to be orange, and nobody is allowed to touch her glue stick. I have learned to agree to all three.
Most of what we make starts as an SVG I cut on a little Cricut that lives on the bottom shelf of the pantry. Some of these I ran on cardstock, some on wood, one on a sheet of acrylic that I absolutely should not have tried at 9pm. We had a few wins and one full meltdown over a coffin bookmark that would not weed cleanly. Normal October stuff.
These are the files we keep going back to, grabbed from an indie design shop where most of them cost less than the snacks. A couple of the links below are affiliate links, so if you buy through one I get a few cents. Costs you nothing. Glue stick is still off limits though.
Mason Jar Characters My Kid Lined Up On The Windowsill
This bundle is a row of little jar friends with faces, and my son immediately claimed it as a job. He wanted one Frankenstein, one ghost, one black cat, all in a row. We cut the vinyl pieces and stuck them onto actual mason jars I dug out of the recycling bin, dropped a battery tea light in each one, and put the whole parade on the kitchen windowsill where the morning light hits.
Weeding the tiny eyeball whites is the annoying part. They are small enough that one flicked off and vanished into the rug, never seen again. So I cut a second sheet. With the spares you stop being precious about it.
They glow surprisingly well at night. My son checks on them like they are pets.
Coffin Bookmarks That Caused One (1) Meltdown
Okay. The coffin bookmarks. These are cut files shaped like little coffins, and they are genuinely adorable, and they also nearly ended our craft afternoon. The thin cross detail on the top did not want to weed and my daughter took it personally.
We got there. The trick was slowing the cut speed way down and using a fresh blade instead of the chewed-up one I leave in the machine out of laziness. After that they popped out clean. She made four and gave one to her teacher, one to her best friend, and kept two for herself because sharing has limits.
They stick out of a paperback just enough to look spooky on a shelf. My only nitpick: cut these on something stiff, 110 lb cardstock or thin wood, or they flop over inside a thick book and crease.
Round Signs For The Kid Who Wanted A Door Plaque
My nephew was over for the weekend and decided the front door needed a sign. Not a poster, a sign, like an official one. This round sign bundle was the answer. We picked a layered design, cut the back circle from black cardstock and the letters and little bats in orange, and stacked them.
He wanted it big. The files scale fine, but the bigger you go the more the thin connecting bits in the lettering get fragile, so I bumped the cardstock to the heavy stuff and glued a popsicle stick across the back for support. Held all month.
We taped it to the door with painter’s tape so it would not pull paint, and it survived two windstorms and a dog. He talks about it like it was a major construction project.
The Big SVG And PNG Grab Bag We Raided All Month
This is the workhorse. A pile of Halloween shapes in both cut-file and image form, which mattered because half our projects were stickers my daughter wanted to slap on her water bottle and the other half were real cuts on cardstock.
We used the PNG ghosts to print sticker sheets on the home printer (ran out of black ink on the second sheet, of course, so the third batch of ghosts is a moody gray that she now insists are storm ghosts). The cut files went into a banner for over the snack table.
If you only buy one thing off this list for a kids’ afternoon, it is this one, because it keeps three different ages busy doing three different things. One small gripe: the bundle is big enough that I spent ten minutes just scrolling to find the cat I wanted. Worth it, but make a snack first.
A Candy Bowl We Built Instead Of Buying
My sister hosts the neighborhood trick-or-treat handoff on her porch, and last year she wanted a candy bowl with personality. This treat bowl SVG is a 3D build, little panels you cut and slot together into a bowl shape, and we did it on her kitchen table while the kids were supposed to be asleep.
We cut it from heavy black cardstock. Slotting the pieces together took two tries and one moment where she said a word the kids were lucky to be asleep for. Once it clicked together it actually held a real amount of fun-size candy without sagging.
It is paper, so it is not waterproof, and her porch is open. We learned to bring it inside if the forecast turned. Inside on the table it looked great and cost about a dollar in cardstock.
The Shadow Box That Ate My Whole Sunday
This one is not a quick kids’ craft, full honesty. It is a layered shadow box, several cut sheets that stack up with little spacers between them so you get depth and a creepy graveyard scene when you light it from behind. My daughter helped for about twenty minutes and then went to watch a movie, which is fair.
The layers need to line up or the whole effect falls apart, so I cut registration off the corners and used foam tape between sheets for the gap. Black cardstock for the front layers, a lighter gray behind so the moon reads. When I dropped a warm fairy light string in the back, the front room went quiet for a second. Even my partner looked up.
Give yourself an afternoon and good light. The cuts are fine. The patience is the hard part.
Laser-Cut Bookmarks For The Wood-Burning Phase
These bookmarks are drawn for a laser cutter, which I do not own, so I borrowed time on the one at the makerspace two towns over while my kid pressed her face against the safety glass. We ran them on thin basswood and they came out smelling like a campfire, in a good way.
The spider web one is the favorite. The fine inner lines cut cleanly on wood in a way they never would on paper, which is the whole point of grabbing the laser version. We sanded the back of each one lightly because the cut edge can leave a faint scorch shadow on your fingers.
If you have no laser, the shapes are simple enough to trace and cut by hand on cardstock, you just lose the delicate webbing. My daughter gave the wooden ones to grandparents and kept the paper trials for herself. Backwards, but she had reasons.
Cat Earrings That Became A Big-Kid Project
My niece is eleven and decided she was too old for the craft table this year, until I mentioned earrings. These cat-shaped laser-cut earring files pulled her right back in. We cut them on thin acrylic at the makerspace, which is the 9pm decision I mentioned earlier, except this time it actually went fine.
The black acrylic ones look almost store-bought once you add the little ear wires, which we bought separately at the craft store for a couple dollars a pack. The cuts are small, so a couple of the first batch had a rough edge that needed a quick pass with a nail file.
She wore them to school the next week and got asked where she bought them, which she found deeply satisfying. Too old for the craft table, she says. Sure.
A Tiny Haunted House For The Mantel
This is a bundle for building a little spooky house, walls and roof and cutout windows that slot together, meant for a laser cutter. We did it on thin plywood and it is now the centerpiece of our mantel, lit from inside so the cutout windows throw little spooky shapes on the wall.
My kid wanted to paint it. I let her do the roof. It is a slightly alarming shade of purple now, but I have made my peace, and honestly the purple roof gets more comments than anything I planned. Glue the slot joints even if they feel snug, because a curious cat will test every one of them.
The cutout windows are where the magic is. Drop a single warm light bulb in and turn off the lamp. The first time we did it my daughter whispered, which from her is the highest possible review.
The Ouija File For The Slightly Older Crowd
Quick note on this one: it is more for the spooky-movie-night crowd than the little kids, so I made it after bedtime. The Ouija board cut file has all the letters and the sun and moon details, and I cut it as black vinyl to stick onto a plain wooden tray I had from a thrift store.
The letters are where you earn it. Weeding a full alphabet plus numbers is a real sit-down job, so I put on a movie and did it in one go with a fresh weeding tool. Transfer tape is your friend here, lay the whole sheet at once or you will never line the letters up by hand.
The finished tray lives on the coffee table during October and holds the remote and a bowl of candy corn nobody actually eats. Looks great. Slightly cursed. As intended.
Frequently Asked Questions
What vegetables go well with pumpkin?
On our craft days the pumpkin theme spills into the snacks, so I roast cubes of butternut and toss in red onion, a little garlic, and sage, and the kids eat more of it than I expect. Carrots and Brussels sprouts also land well on the same tray since they roast in about the same time.
If you are carving and want to use the insides, the seeds toasted with salt buy you a solid hour of quiet while you finish cutting files.
Why do cats do halloween cat?
Black cats are basically the unofficial mascot of October, which is why so many of these files have one. My daughter is convinced our actual cat knows she is the theme and acts smug about it the whole month.
For crafts it is the easy win: a cat silhouette weeds clean, reads from across the room, and works on a shirt, a jar, or a pair of earrings without changing a thing.
What are ghost cats?
In our house a ghost cat is what happens when my kid combines two of her favorite cut files, a ghost and a cat, into one slightly confused white blob with whiskers. She insists it is a real Halloween creature.
If you want to make one on purpose, cut a ghost shape in white and add little black cat ears and a tail from the scrap vinyl. Total nonsense, very cute, surprisingly popular at the kids’ table.
How to use witches cauldron bewitchment?
We turned the cauldron idea into the snack centerpiece. I cut a cauldron shape, propped it behind a real bowl of green-frosted treats, and the kids called it a bewitchment, which is now the family word for any over-decorated snack.
If you mean it as a craft, a cauldron silhouette layered in front of a battery light makes a quick glowing decoration for the table. Cut it from black cardstock, fold a little tab at the base so it stands, and let a kid arrange fake spiders around it.
Before You Print
None of this came out perfect. The coffin bookmark made my daughter cry for about ninety seconds, the candy bowl sagged the one humid afternoon, and there is a purple roof on the mantel I did not vote for. I would not change any of it.
Grab one file, pick a rainy Saturday, and let a kid hold the glue stick even though they will use too much. That is the whole holiday, honestly. Just keep a spare sheet of cardstock for when the first one tears.