Affordable Spooky DIY Halloween Porch Decorating Ideas

Halloween porch decorating is so much fun and a great way for us older adults to get involved in Halloween. This year our front porch decor is all about ghosts, Boo-yah fun ghosts. I am excited to show you our DIY Halloween porch ideas and hope you enjoy them as much as we did making them.

There are lots of neighborhood kids including my granddaughters who come trick or treating, and they look forward to seeing what Grama created this year. This ghost-themed Halloween porch is more about spooky than it is scary. It’s such a good time having the cute little trick-and-treaters and their parents come up to our house and the festive Halloween decor lets them know we want them to come, and it means we get more kids, which is the best part.

As always the budget is especially tight for Halloween as we are saving up for Christmas, but you still want to have a fun Halloween. There are several Halloween porch decorations you can create using mostly free or Dollar Store supplies. I will include links to all the easy DIY Halloween decoration ideas tutorials. I am certain there are several front porch ideas you will be able to use for your own home.

Halloween Porch decorating with a ghost theme, a ghost dog in a costume, spooky trees with bats, a diy ghost sign, and all kinds of pumpkins.

The Dog in a Ghost Costume

We have a large great Pyrenees who would look fabulous in a ghost costume, but he would not be a happy ghost even if I dressed him up to meet the trick-and-treaters. Instead, we created this Dog in a Ghost Costume decoration. This little ghost dog is the feature of our Halloween porch decor ideas, so I will show him first. Then we added several other DIY outdoor Halloween decorations to our porch.

I used a traditional color scheme for our outdoor Halloween decor ideas, everything is black, orange, and white. It makes the front porch look cohesive and planned. Sometimes less is more and I wanted the dog ghost to stand out.

DIY Halloween Sign Decoration

Unless you go to one of the expensive Halloween stores I find the purchased wood signs too small to make a statement, and they could even be a tripping hazard. What a horror story that would be. So this DIY ghost Halloween sign is large enough to stand out where the kids can see it when approaching the door. Would you believe it’s made with Dollar Tree supplies and cost $4 to put it together? Ha, who needs pricey?

A large DIY peg sign for Halloween porch decor featuring ghosts, spooky, happy haunting, a spooky small signs.

Decorating the Front Steps

I wanted the front steps to remain clear, as often we can get troops of 8 or more kids at a time and they need to be safe and have as much room as possible. So instead of lining up the orange pumpkins up the stairs, I made two stacks of pumpkins instead. One side is a pile of large pumpkins in a witch cauldron I grabbed at a garage sale for $3.

A Halloween cauldron of pumpkins on Halloween porch decorations

The second one is in a black basket with quickly drawn Boo-yah ghost pumpkins. The drawings are done with a Dollar Store chalk pen and a Sharpie. Five minutes and what can I say but Boo-yah done.

A basket of real pumpkins decorated for Halloween Boo, a ghost, and Ya.

Each basket has a few flameless votives in them its look awesome at nighttime.

Hubs grew all these real pumpkins for me. If you have room to grow a pumpkin plant or two, it’s a really fun way to introduce kids to gardening, with each child having their own pumpkin plant.

Spooky Tree Halloween Decorations

These spooky trees give an eerie feeling to the front porch at night. They were loads of fun to make, Hubs and I had a fun afternoon putting these together. One tree has an owl feature, the second tree has a creepy crow with red eyes that light up.

There is one spooky tree placed in the flower garden, my idea was to close in the front walkway as the kids walk up.

Spooky trees made from old branches, with bats and candles. The two trees surround a Halloween front porch decorated with ghosts and pumpkins. branches

The second spooky tree encloses the side of the porch.

My first thought was to use black spray paint on the old dead branches, but they had lots of dark creepy-looking dead bark still on them, so I decided to leave them as is they look eerie just as they are. The trees were hung with Dollar Store black bats using fishing line, to make them look like they were flying. We strung some Dollar Store black flameless candles to the trees to make them even more eerie, highlight the bats, and add a glow to the front steps.

A large spooky ghost Halloween porch decoration surrounded by pumpkins and creepy trees with bats and crows. The trees are made from dead branches.

Halloween Front Door Decorations

I thought about creating a wreath for the front door, but only for a millisecond. Instead, I made a quick last-minute Halloween door mat and placed our metal jack-o-lantern on the other side.

Halloween front porch decorating with a DIY ghost doormat decoration

This large pumpkin jack-o-lantern is at least 10 years old, and I love sticking it into our Halloween porch decor somewhere every year.

A bunch of pumpkins including a metal jack o lantern sitting on a Halloween decorated front porch. There is also a ghost doormat.

I think during the daytime when the little trick-and-treaters are out and about the Halloween porch will look festive and fun.

Outdoor Halloween Decoration Ideas at Dark

Living up north in Canada the days are already quite short in October. I took these nighttime photographs about six o’clock. The string lights give the ghost dog an eerie glow making it creepier for the older trick-and-treaters.

A large ghost Halloween porch decoration with lights and surrounded by pumpkins.

The tea lights snuck in between the pumpkins added a little bit of light to the front porch, and illuminated the wording and creepy skeleton hand I snuck in the basket.

Halloween porch decorations lit up for nighttime. There is a large basket of pumpkins with a drawing of a ghost and wording that says Boo -Yah

I love the bats at night.

Ghostly and spooky Halloween porch at night lit with candles, and decorated with branch covered spooky trees, and a large DIY ghost.

The entire porch cost us less than $30 to put together, most of that on the ghost dog, then the Dollar Tree signs, some extra candles, and the bats. The vast majority we bought at the Dollar Tree or Dollar Store and I think our pretty cheap Halloween decorations came together to make our Halloween night special. I can’t wait for October 31st.

Happy Halloween Leanna