Halloween is coming, and while we love sharing Halloween craft ideas for our preschoolers and little ones, our teens and older kids want to get in on the fun too. So with my own Halloween-loving older kids in mind, I searched around for some cool Halloween craft projects and ideas just for teens.

These are all officially tween- and teen-approved, parents! I mean, I’ve looked around the web for Halloween crafts for teens and found lots of “stick googly eyes on a painted mason jar to make a pencil holder” or “make an owl puppet from a paper bag” and…no. Just, no.

Do those people even have teens?

This is the cool stuff, right here. Vetted by actual high-schoolers. . Promise. -Liz with Caroline

Skull String Art at top: Elsie Larson, A Beautiful Mess

Updated for 2023

11 cool Halloween crafts for teens that don’t suck

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Halloween Skull String Craft Art
Leave it to Elsie at A Beautiful Mess (man, she is talented!) to come up with the perfect Halloween for my skull-loving teen, in this Halloween skull string art craft. It will definitely take a run to Michael’s and some time this weekend, but I know my daughter would keep it up on her wall long after the 31st is over.

Helpful Supplies
½”-thick piece of wood, about 12×24″
white panel nails,
white cotton string or baker’s twine
black paint or spray paint

Goth Garden Planter Craft
These Goth Halloween Relief Planters by the incredible creator Nikki Alvarez (@practical peculiarities on Insta) are mind-blowing — and mindblowingly easy! A teen can figure out the instructions using old plastic spiders or snake toys, or check the Halloween planter tutorial on the HGTV site that he put together with Rachael Jones. And hey, our teens love their succulents.

Be sure to check the rest of his feed for loads of super cool Halloween crafts our teens would love to do all year long.

Helpful Supplies
4″ terra cotta succulent pots
hot glue gun
plastic bugs and spider toys (this set of 43 is a great deal)
black latex house paint (or get a small sample from a local paint store)
clear acrylic protective spray with matte finish

Pretzel Mummies and Other DIY Halloween Treats
Kitchen crafts are always a great Halloween craft for tweens and teens that lets them get creative. For ideas, look no further than Cool Mom Eats and our entire Halloween category. And at the top of my own kids’ list: These Pretzel Mummies from Sheri Silver, shown here. Because salty + sweet + edible googly eyes is a winning combo. Find more ideas in our roundup of easy Halloween treats for kids — it was designed for parents, but doubles as a list that teens can absolutely DIY themselves.

Helpful Supplies
Mini candy eyeballs (we always like Wilton)
White or bright white candy melts
Pretzel rods, of course!

Halloween Pumpkin Diorama Craft
Okay so this totally falls under Advanced Crafting 301 but — mind blown by the Stranger Things pumpkin diorama at Brit + Co. My younger daughter is still all-in on Stranger Things everything, and went as Nancy for Halloween a few years back. (And yes, it’s a tough one. I tried to convince her to go as Dustin but no dice.)

Helpful supplies:
black acrylic paint
preserved forest moss for crafting
dry foliage (pick it yourself)
black glitter
mini model people (amazon has tons)

Gilded Insect Easy Taxidermy Craft
We are absolutely 100% obsessed with this amazingly easy — and creepy — Halloween craft from The Gathered Home. Her Gilded Insect Taxidermy craft instructions are so easy, including tips for painting the plastic bugs with gold leaf paint, and she lays out every single thing you’ll need to bring these creepy-crawlies to your own wall. Or better, your teen’s bedroom wall.

Helpful supplies:
giant plastic insects
liquid gold leaf paint
unfinished wooden plaques
(make sure the sizes are proportionate to the insects)

DIY Halloween Bath Bomb Craft
If your tween has moved on from DIY slime — or at least have added a few other interests into the mix — they’re probably now into bath bombs. So this DIY Monster Eye bath bombs craft at The Makeup Dummy is right up their alley for Halloween crafting. They do need a few special supplies for these, but if they’re already into DIY bath bombs, you may already have ingredients on hand.

Helpful supplies
There’s a full list right on her site, but for the essential oils, we recommend Aura Cacia.

Halloween Spider Web Jewelry Craft
I am obsessed with this DIY Halloween spider web jewelry tutorial from Lia Griffith, which blends jewelry making with paper craft. It does require a spider web craft punch, which is super hard to find! But artistic kids who are precise could trace some clip art with an X-Acto knife.
Alternately: Try laser-cut wooden spiderwebs (check for size!) or 2″ plastic spider webs used for crafting. Take a look — Lia’s instructions are so simple that we were excited to have found this Halloween craft.

Helpful supplies:
Jewelry pliers set (our teens get tons of use out of this!)
necklace chains for jewelry making
earring wires/hooks
o rings (also called jump rings)

Adult Halloween Coloring Pages
Think tweens and teens are too old for Halloween coloring pages? Try some adult coloring pages! Believe it or not, I found this fantastic free printable adult sugar skull coloring page from Crayola. Just toss in some sharp, high quality colored pencils (Crayola’s got an adult line that’s quite affordable) or fine-line felt-tip markers and they’re set. Find more wonderful ideas for printable sugar skull coloring page right here.

Sugar Skull Painted Planter Craft
For more sugar skull inspiration, I’m blown away by these intricate daisy-eyed sugar skull planters at Plaid Online, which makes an amazing Halloween craft for tweens and teens who are steady with a Sharpie a paint brush. Wow.

Helpful Supplies
4″ terra cotta succulent pots
Ceramic colored paints: Recommended brands/colors right on the Plaid site.

Pumpkin Carving Crafts for Teens
When you’ve got teens, they’re ready to try their hand at pumpkin carving themselves, so we’ve been poring through our post on nearly 100 free, geeky pumpkin carving templates. They love the Totoro stencils, and the Marvel characters are definitely on the list of possibilities, but the force is strong with the Star Wars pumpkin carving template from Anthony Herrera Designs. In fact, pair Darth Vader with Kylo Red and they’ll be firmly on the Dark Side.

And of course, don’t forget to use up those pumpkin seeds in one of these fun pumpkin seed recipes! That’s a whole other teen Halloween DIY project right there.

Helpful Supplies
Good quality pumpkin carving tool kit
Battery-powered tea lights or Wax tea lights
(look for a longer burn time, around 6-8 hours)

No-Carve Pumpkin Decorating Crafts
For the pumpkins we don’t carve, we’ve shared so many creative no-carve pumpkin decorating ideas over the years and I love them all. But a new one to add to our list: This gorgeous galaxy pumpkin decorating craft idea from Dream A Little Bigger, which is like the perfect Halloween craft for artistic tweens and teens.

Helpful supplies:
9″ black craft pumpkin (we like this one from Michael’s, which gets the best reviews of any we’ve found)
Multi-colored acrylic paints — specific colors on the tutorial
Metallic gold acrylic paint
Sponge brushes
Electric hand drill with bits in small and smaller sizes