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 kid 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” 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. Promise.
-Liz with Caroline
Skull String Art at top: A Beautiful Mess

Updated for 2022

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.

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. You’ll need planter, some dollar-bin toys (or upcycle your own), a hot glue gun, and a latex paint mix that he describes. 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.

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.

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.)

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, 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.

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.

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 like this one, and they can be hard to find. But artistic kids who are precise could trace some clip art with an X-Acto knife. Take a look — Lia’s instructions are so simple that we were excited to have found this Halloween craft.

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 adult Day of the Dead sugar skull coloring page from Crayola. Just toss in some sharp, high quality colored pencils (Crayon’s are 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.

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.

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.