Monster Paper Plate Craft (Easy Halloween Project!)

Tis’ the season for vampires, witches, Frankenstein, and jack-o’-lanterns. This time of year, my children love to make spooky crafts, and this paper plate activity will keep you busy for a long time.

This Halloween craft has a lot of different opportunities to customize and be creative. This can be a simple 10-minute project (pre-painted orange plate and adding pumpkin faces) or an elaborate multi-day project.

If you are crafting at home, I recommend turning on your favorite spooky movie to craft to.

One of the best things about making paper plate crafts is that you usually have all the supplies you need right at home! They’re convenient, affordable, simple to make, but still a lot of fun.

Not only will this help your child to get creative, it will work on their fine motor and developmental skills as well. This can be done with a younger child or is perfect for a preschooler.

Looking for more Halloween projects? Try these!

• Witch Handprint Craft
• Basic Pumpkin Template – Free Printable
• Slime for Halloween – Easy Ideas for Spooky Slime
• Printable Tombstone Template
• Halloween Tic-Tac-Toe and Bingo

Why We Love Paper Plate Crafts:

Easy to find supplies are everything! When we started to plan what we wanted to share on this site, we made a commitment to hone in on *easy*. Easy to find, easy to make, easy on parents and easy for kids. Our biggest goal is to share projects that you will do.

The best kind of kids projects are things you already have in your home, or can easily grab on your next grocery store trip. I always keep small and large paper plates stocked in my art room and now I hope you will too.

Supplies:

1. Acrylic paint (in green, purple, orange, black, and white)
2. Paintbrushes
3. Paper plates
4. Construction paper (in white, black, and brown)
5. Black yarn (optional, for hair)
6. Scissors
7. Glue stick
8. Black marker

Dracula Paper Plate Instructions:

1. Start by painting your paper plate black and purple. Give your vampire a nice spiky hairline with the black paint—it’s his signature look. I like to use the underside of a paper plate when making characters.
2. Pre-cut the eyes, eyebrows, mouth and fangs of your character. Secure pieces with glue and allow to dry.
3. Add pupils to the eyes and a nose with a black marker.
4. The blood on the fangs is optional. I forgot to add mine, but it’s a nice spooky touch!

How to Make Frankenstein:

1. Start by painting your paper plate light green and black. Give him a jagged hairline. Allow dry time.
2. Cut the eyes, tooth and mouth pieces from black and white paper. Use glue to secure.
3. Use a black marker to add pupils to the eyes and a scar with stitches to his forehead.

Witch Paper Plate Instructions:

1. Prep by painting a plate light green.
2. Cut white, black and green paper to create shapes for eyes, noses and mouths. Cut hats from black paper.
3. Secure black yarn with glue to create hair. If you don’t want to mess with yarn, replace with paper hair. As you can see on the small witch above, it’s super cute as well.

Jack-o’-Lantern Paper Plate Instructions:

1. Start by painting your paper plate orange (bonus points for including multiple shades of orange for different pumpkins).
2. Cut brown paper to make a stem. Cut black paper to create jack-o’-lantern faces.
3. Secure with glue.

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Get the How-To

Make these fun and spooky or silly monsters with paper plates for your Halloween-themed craft!

Yield 1 paper plate

Prep 10 mins

Drying Time (for Paint) 40 mins

Cook 20 mins

Supplies

1x2x3x

• ▢ 3-4 paper plates (or as many monsters as you want to make! )
• ▢ acrylic paint (in green, purple, orange, black and white.)
• ▢ construction paper (in white, black and brown.)
• ▢ black yarn (optional for witches' hair. )
• ▢ 1 glue stick (or school glue. )

Instructions

Dracula Paper Plate

• Start by painting your paper plate black and purple, using the underside of the paper plate. Give your vampire a nice spiky hairline—it's his signature look.
• Pre-cut the eyes, eyebrows, mouth and fangs of your character.
• Secure pieces with glue and allow to dry.
• Add pupils to the eyes and a nose with black marker.

Frankenstein Paper Plate

• Start by painting your paper plate light green and black.
• Give him a jagged hairline. Allow dry time.
• Cut the eyes, tooth and mouth pieces from black and white paper. Use glue to secure the pieces to the plate.
• Make sure the paint has dried, then use black marker to add pupils to the eyes and a scar with stitches to his forehead.

Witch Paper Plate

• Prep by painting a plate light green.
• Cut white, black and green paper to create shapes for eyes, noses and mouths. Cut hats from black paper.
• Secure black yarn with glue to create hair. If you don't want to mess with yarn, replace with paper hair.

Jack-o'-Lantern Paper Plate

• Start by painting your paper plate orange (bonus points for including multiple shades of orange for different pumpkins).
• Cut brown paper to make a stem.
• Cut black paper to create jack-o'-lantern faces. Secure with glue.

Equipment

1 pair of scissors

paintbrush for each color of paint

Keywords halloween crafts, paper plate crafts