How to Make a Halloween Haystack
Updated: Sep. 21, 2020Scare up some Halloween fun on your porch with these silly and spooky straw-bale monsters. Make one or all three!
Transform straw bales into scary-cool outdoor Halloween decorations with a few items from the hardware store. It’s easy to make a spooky spider, a cheery mummy, or a grinning Frankenstein’s monster with just a handful of supplies. You can choose to make just one or recreate all three! Greet this year’s trick-or-treaters with this Halloween haystack trio. If it just doesn’t feel like Halloween without decorating a few pumpkins, check out our no-carve patterned pumpkin project (all you need is painter’s tape and spray paint!)
Materials:
- 3 straw bales
- Spray paint in green, black, and white
- Craft foam sheets in green, black, and white
- Foam piping, black (1/2-in.)
- Bendable aluminum rods (3/16-in. diameter x .035 gauge)
- Cheesecloth
- Glue gun
Step-By-Step Instructions:
Step 1
For all three creatures, spray-paint the straw bales first and let them dry. (If using 2 colors, let the first color dry before applying the next.)
Step 2
Cut out the eyes and mouth from craft foam and hot-glue them to the painted bales.
Note: Straw bales can be decorated horizontally or vertically. Find aluminum tubing at your local hardware store.
Step 3
Frankenstein’s Monster Straw Bale
Spray-paint the lower 3/4 of straw bale green and the top 1/4 black. Add a stitches scar of black craft foam. Make neck bolts by hot-gluing 2-in. lengths of foam piping to either side of the bale.
Step 4
Spider Straw Bale
To get the leg length, start with your measuring tape at the top of the bale and curve it as you unroll, forming an arc to the ground. Cut 6 lengths of foam piping to this measurement. Fit aluminum rods inside each leg, leaving 6-8 in. exposed at one end. Hot-glue rod to foam. Poke exposed rod end into the top of the bale and curve each leg into position.
Step 5
Mummy Straw Bale
Wrap the bale in cheesecloth and hot-glue in place.
