A Haunted House for Pint-Sized Witches & Ghosts
I don’t know about your little ones but my little girl is not too keen on visiting a haunted house this coming Halloween. Truthfully, neither am I. But making one, that’s a whole other story! There’s nothing scary about making a haunted house, just a whole lot of fun!
This year we decided to make a haunted playhouse much like the cardboard gingerbread house we made a while back for Christmas, just in a different color palette and a bit spookier. It was really fun to use our imaginations to make something spooky for Halloween.
First we gathered our supplies.
- Two 22-inch cube boxes (purchased at our local mailbox store)
- House paint in spooky colors (our hardware store had a sale on small tubs called craft pods…they worked great, but also check for oops paint–which is the leftover paint people leave behind when they don’t like the color)
- a 4-inch paint roller with some sponge rollers (best purchase you’ll ever make)
- 1-3 paint trays (the cheap plastic ones are fine)
- a drop cloth, sheet or garbage bags to protect your painting surface
- a box cutter, blade or even serrated knife
- duct tape
- a few paint brushes for detail work
- a pencil and ruler
Then we got to work. I created a gable for this house by cutting two of the opposite top flaps into triangles. Then I cut my extra box in half (folded flat) and laid it over the top of this gable to create a roof. Everything is held together with minimal strips of black duct tape. Don’t worry about the tape showing because your house paint will cover it quite well.
I decided to get fancy with the awnings by cutting a 30 degree angle on the corners and then attaching some gingerbread but you don’t have to do that. A straight flat roof is plenty spooky.
After the roof was attached and everything was taped down I cut out the windows and door. I angled everything bigger at the top because to me that’s how haunted houses seem, like they are towering over you. Plus, I thought it was just something fun and different to do. On the back window I added the shape of a ghost just for kicks.
Then we started painting. Don’t be intimidated by house paint. It’s super easy to roll on and it covers quickly and smoothly. Of course messiness is a factor but if you tape down a drop cloth (or six garbage bags in our case) clean-up is as easy as wrapping it all up and throwing it away. Water-based paint washes right off and as long as you don’t run in the house and wipe your hands on your nice white couch everything will clean up just fine.
After we painted the whole house black and the roof purple, it was time for some details! I decided to take the old-style New Orleans approach to our haunted house and added some white fencing to the bottom. I was a bit of a control freak while creating this haunted house but I bet kids everywhere would get a kick out of painting monsters or tombstones or who knows what on the sides of their houses. Fuzzy furry hands? Bloody eyeballs? This could be a great project for kids all ages.
A few hours later our paint was dry and our house was ready to play in! I think I’ll keep this around for the Halloween party I’ll be hosting at our house this year. I’m sure it will be great entertainment.
Related posts:
22 Responses to “A Haunted House for Pint-Sized Witches & Ghosts”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- - Sep 26
[...] a kid a toy, he wants to play with the box. Especially if those boxes in question look like this! Alpha Mom has put together a brilliant tutorial to make a little Halloween fun-house for little ones using [...]
- - Sep 29
[...] A haunted house for the littles! Ok, this one I have been day dreaming about since I stumbled on the link. Not only would this be an amazing way to hand out candy on Halloween from your driveway to the trick or treaters – I’m thinking of making a couple of these as a “village” for my kids to play house in. A “store”, a “bakery”, a “house” … the ideas are endless and so adaptable. 1, 2, 3 … GO! [...]
- - Oct 06
[...] Todas las instrucciones en alphamom [...]
- - Oct 06
[...] del sito alphamom a questo link potete trovare il tutorial; avrete bisogno di cartone, colori, rullo per dipingere (sono certa che [...]
- - Oct 21
[...] a celebrar Halloween con niños? Pues te traemos un tutorial ideal para tenerlos entretenidos en este día tan especial. Se trata de una casita de brujas hecha [...]
This is great! We (I) am starting to think about my 3 year-old’s birthday, which is going to be Halloween weekend. I hope you are going to plan the rest for me, I mean, uh, give us more crafts!
Wonderful I just love it! I want one too.
Hi Brenda, this is SO awesome. I love the little blue fuzzy ghost that your daughter is holding on to and her outfit it spooktacular. What a great idea.
This is phenomenal! Definitely the best project posted here! I LOVE IT! Congratulations, Brenda! I can’t wait to try it.
That is ADORABLE!!!
HOW cute! Will definitely keep this in mind for halloween night!
Would this work well using spray paint for the large areas? House paint overseas is expensive!
It might if you’re a good spray painter. I tried doing a wall a while back and my spray painting was terrible. It came out heavy in spots and drippy. But it might work for you! I bet rolling on any kind of acylilc craft paint would work. I think the rolling is the important part.
Fantastica!!
I just popped over from One Pretty Thing…. I LOVE this house!! My boys’ eyeballs would fall out if they saw it!
) Thanks for the idea. Now I’m off to check out the gingerbread version — which they would ALSO be gaga over!
I’m SHOCKED to see Bug in Pink and black tights hehe.
) This is an awesome house Brenda! I love the wrought iron style fence.
how much do the boxes cost?
You can find boxes for free lots of places. Backs of stores, especially hardware stores if you ask them nicely. I bought these ones at a mailbox store and they cost $10 each.
Wow – I’m floored (um, no bad pun intended). My son would go bananas if I made him something even 1/10 as cool.
this is ridiculously great!
This is FAB!!!
I LOVE this!!!!! shared it on my blog! I wish it was big enough for me to get in with my little ones!! =)