You know that stack of credit card offers and pizza coupons by the recycling bin? It’s about to become the cutest haunted house on the block. Grab the orange highlighter from your desk drawer (the one your kid already drew on the wall with) and let’s get messy.
1. Ghostly Envelopes
Take those windowed envelopes from bills and turn them into little ghosts. The plastic window becomes the ghost’s face – just draw two eyes and an O-shaped mouth with your orange highlighter.
Cut out a ghost shape around the window, leaving a white border. Let your kid add spooky orange highlights on the edges. They’ll beg to hang these on every doorknob in the house.
My three-year-old insisted her ghost needed eyelashes. Honestly? Adorable. Tape a piece of string to the back and you’ve got instant Halloween bunting.
For extra flair, stuff the envelope ghost with a crumpled junk mail flyer before sealing it. It gives the ghost a puffy, 3D belly that wiggles when you walk past.
2. Orange Highlighter Spider Webs
Draw a giant spider web on a blank section of a junk mail catalog cover. Use the side of the orange highlighter tip for thick lines, then the fine point for the spiral threads.
The highlighter glows like crazy under a black light, so test it in the bathroom with the nightlight off. Your kids will think you’re a wizard.
Cut the web out and tape it to a window. Bonus points if you add a tiny paper spider made from a blackened piece of junk mail (just color it in with a marker).
3. Jack-O-Lantern Junk Mail Collage
Grab every orange-ish piece of junk mail you can find – fast food coupons, furniture ads, those annoying realtor postcards. Cut them into pumpkin shapes of all sizes.
Let your kid arrange the pumpkin cutouts on a larger piece of cardboard from a cereal box (also junk, right?). Glue them down overlapping like a patchwork field.
Use the orange highlighter to draw stems and vines connecting the pumpkins. My son spent forty minutes on this and then demanded we frame it. We used a pizza box lid.
Add googly eyes if you have them. If not, cut little triangle eyes from black junk mail. The collage looks chaotic in the best Halloween way.
4. Mummy Jars From Spiral Notebook Pages
Wait – spiral notebooks aren’t junk mail. But those annoying subscription cards that fall out of magazines? Perfect. Tear them into thin strips to wrap around a small jar or can.
Color the edges of each strip with orange highlighter before wrapping. It gives the mummy a subtle glow that regular white paper strips can’t match.
Leave two gaps near the top for googly eyes, or draw eyes directly on the jar. Use a junk mail envelope to cut out little hands and feet if you’re feeling extra.
The best part? You can stash candy inside the mummy jar. Your kid will unwrap it ten times before Halloween night even arrives.
5. Bat Silhouettes With Highlighted Veins
Find a glossy junk mail flyer – the kind that’s too shiny for markers. Your orange highlighter still works on it, but it stays wet longer. Perfect for smudging.
Draw a bat shape and cut it out. Then use the highlighter to add vein-like lines along the wings. The orange looks like glowing magma against the dark paper.
Tape the bats to your front window from the inside. When the sun goes down, they look like they’re flying through a jack-o-lantern sky. My neighbor asked where I bought them.
6. Candy Corn Confetti
Take the white part of a junk mail envelope (the back without the window). Cut it into small triangle shapes – wide at the top, pointy at the bottom.
Color the bottom third of each triangle with orange highlighter, then the middle third with yellow if you have it. If not, just orange fades to white looks fine.
Sprinkle these on your Halloween dinner table. Your kids will spend twenty minutes sorting them by size instead of arguing about vegetables. Win-win.
7. Haunted House With Glowing Windows
Use a large junk mail catalog cover as your haunted house base. Fold it in half like a greeting card, then cut out square windows on the front.
Color the inside of the house (the back side of the windows) with orange highlighter. When you close the card, the windows glow through the cuts.
Draw a door, some shingles, and a crooked chimney with your highlighter. Add ghosts peeking out of the windows using tiny envelope scraps. My daughter made three of these for her dollhouse.
8. Skeleton Hand Puppet
Trace your kid’s hand on a blank junk mail envelope. Cut out two hand shapes and glue the edges together, leaving the bottom open. This is your puppet base.
Use the orange highlighter to draw bones on each finger – just two lines per finger segment. The orange on white envelope paper looks surprisingly medical, in a fun way.
Add tiny black dots for knuckles using a ballpoint pen. Slide the puppet onto your fingers and make it wave at dinner. Your kids will fight over who gets to wear it.
9. Orange Highlighter Stained Glass
Cut a large rectangle out of a junk mail cardboard piece (like a cereal box). Tape a piece of wax paper or a clear plastic bag over the hole.
Let your kid scribble all over the wax paper with the orange highlighter. The more layers, the richer the glow. Then cut out Halloween shapes – moons, cats, witches – from black junk mail and glue them on top.
Hang this in a sunny window. The orange highlighter shines through like real stained glass. I made one last year and forgot to take it down until February.
10. Paper Chain Skeleton
Cut junk mail envelopes into strips of three different lengths (long for arms, medium for legs, short for spine). Color every strip with orange highlighter before linking them.
Link the strips into a chain using tape or glue. For the head, cut a circle from a glossy ad and draw a skull face with the highlighter.
This skeleton can hang from your ceiling or twist in the wind on your porch. The orange tint makes it look less creepy and more “cute pumpkin patch.”
11. Pumpkin Patch Finger Puppets
Cut small pumpkin shapes from orange junk mail (catalog covers work great). Make each one about the size of a quarter.
Use your orange highlighter to add vertical lines and a tiny stem. Then tape a folded strip of paper to the back that loops around a finger.
My kids made a whole family of these and performed a puppet show about a pumpkin who lost his stem. The highlighter let them add faces that wiped off easily when they changed their minds.
12. Bat Wing Bookmarks
Cut a bat wing shape from a stiff junk mail postcard. Make it long and skinny so it hangs out of a book.
Color the veins with orange highlighter on both sides. Then glue a second bat wing back-to-back so the orange shows from every angle.
Slide it into your current library book. Every time you open to your page, you get a tiny Halloween surprise. Plus, it’s recyclable when you’re done reading.
13. Monster Mail Letters
Take an entire junk mail envelope without opening it. Turn it sideways and draw a monster face where the address window becomes the mouth.
Use the orange highlighter for sharp eyebrows and scary teeth. Cut out felt or paper horns from other junk mail scraps and glue them on top.
Write “BOO” on the back in highlighter. Then hide these monster letters under your kid’s pillow or in their lunchbox. The look on their face is worth every paper cut.
14. Glow-in-the-Dark Spider Legs
Cut eight identical strips of junk mail paper – about four inches long and half an inch wide. Color both sides heavily with orange highlighter.
Tape the strips to a small crumpled ball of junk mail (the spider’s body) in a star pattern. Bend the strips to look like crawling legs.
Set this spider on your bathroom counter. When your kid gets up to pee at 3 AM, the highlighter catches the nightlight and makes it look radioactive. They’ll scream – then laugh.
15. Tombstone Rubbings
Cut tombstone shapes from thin junk mail paper (like the sheets inside a magazine). Lay them over a textured surface – a cheese grater, LEGO baseplate, or the bottom of a sneaker.
Rub the side of your orange highlighter over the paper. The texture will appear as white spots on the orange background, like creepy stone grain.
Write “RIP” and silly names like “Dracula’s Snacks” on each tombstone. Tape them to your fridge for a Halloween graveyard that comes off without residue.
16. Witch Hat Cone
Roll a junk mail catalog cover into a cone shape and tape the seam. Trim the bottom so it sits flat. This is your witch hat.
Color the entire cone orange with your highlighter. Then cut a wide brim from a pizza box lid (also recycled junk, technically) and glue the cone to the center.
Let your kid decorate the hat with stars and moons drawn in highlighter. My youngest wore hers for three days straight, including to bed. The orange highlighter never once transferred to her pillowcase.
17. Highlighter Splatter Paint Ghost
Lay a piece of white junk mail paper (from an envelope) flat on your driveway or an old towel. Drip water onto the tip of your orange highlighter, then flick the wet tip at the paper.
The diluted highlighter ink splatters in beautiful orange droplets. Let it dry, then cut out ghost shapes from the splattered paper.
The random splatters look like ectoplasm or magic dust. Your kid will feel like a mad scientist. Just don’t use your good highlighter – the cheap ones work better for this.
18. Candy Wrapper Mask
Save the shiny inner envelope from a junk mail credit card offer – the one with the fake plastic window. Cut eye holes and a mouth hole into it.
Use the orange highlighter to draw stripes, dots, or a skeleton face on the shiny surface. The ink beads up a little, which makes it look like wet paint.
Poke holes on the sides and tie string through them. This mask takes ninety seconds to make and will be worn for exactly that long before your kid demands another one.
19. Pumpkin Maze
Draw a large pumpkin shape on a junk mail cardboard box flap. Inside the pumpkin, draw a simple maze with your orange highlighter from the stem to the bottom.
Make the maze paths about an inch wide. Then cut out a small ghost shape from envelope paper and tape it to a paper clip for a maze mover.
Your kid can slide the ghost through the maze without touching the lines. My son made five of these and traded them with his friends like baseball cards.
20. Hanging Bat Mobile
Cut out ten bat shapes from different junk mail papers – envelopes, catalogs, ads. Color each bat’s wings with orange highlighter in different patterns: stripes, dots, zigzags.
Tie the bats to a coat hanger or a stick using thread. Hang them at different heights so they spin and twist.
Place this mobile near a window. When the afternoon sun hits, the orange highlights look like they’re on fire. Your kid will stand there turning it slowly for twenty minutes.
21. Highlighter Resist Art
Write a secret Halloween message on a white junk mail envelope using a white crayon or a candle stub. You won’t see it at all. Then color over the entire envelope with your orange highlighter.
The wax resists the highlighter ink, so your message appears as white letters on an orange background. Magic, right? Write “BOO” or “Trick or Treat” or “Mom needs coffee.”
My kids thought I was a witch. I didn’t correct them. Use this for homemade Halloween cards or treasure hunt clues around the house.
22. Spider Web Doily
Fold a square of junk mail paper into a triangle three times. Draw curved lines along the folded edges with your orange highlighter, then cut small notches out of the folds.
Unfold it slowly. You’ll get a lacy spider web shape that looks store-bought. The orange highlighter makes it pop against a dark tablecloth.
Tape these webs to your windows or layer them on a Halloween wreath. Warning: your kid will want to cut fifty of them. Hand them the scissors and put on a movie.
23. Ghost Family Portrait
Cut out ghost shapes of different sizes from junk mail envelopes. Arrange them on a larger piece of cardboard like a family photo: big ghost (Dad), medium ghost (Mom), little ghosts (kids).
Use the orange highlighter to draw faces on each ghost. Give Dad a mustache. Give the baby ghost a pacifier. Give Mom angry eyebrows for realism.
Glue them down and add a caption: “The Boo Family, Est. 2024.” This makes a great grandparent gift because it’s ugly in the best possible way.
24. Pumpkin Seed Shaker
Save the little plastic window from a junk mail envelope. Fill it with dried beans or rice (or actual pumpkin seeds from your jack-o-lantern carving). Tape another plastic window on top to seal it.
Color the outside of the windows with orange highlighter so the seeds inside look like glowing pumpkin guts. Tape this shaker to a popsicle stick.
Your kid now has a Halloween musical instrument. Shake it while singing “Monster Mash” until you regret everything. The highlighter will wear off on their hands, but that’s tomorrow’s problem.
25. Highlighter Gradient Moon
Cut a large circle from a white junk mail envelope. Color the bottom half of the circle with orange highlighter, then use a dry tissue to smudge the color upward.
The smudging creates a gradient from dark orange at the bottom to pale yellow-white at the top. It looks exactly like a harvest moon.
Draw craters with the fine tip of the highlighter. Hang this moon above your Halloween mantel or tape it to a window with a bat silhouette in front.
26. Pop-Up Skeleton Card
Fold a junk mail catalog cover in half. Cut two parallel slits on the fold about an inch apart. Push the tab inward to create a pop-up platform.
Draw and cut out a tiny skeleton from envelope paper. Color its bones with orange highlighter and glue it to the pop-up tab.
Write “Happy Halloween” on the front with the highlighter. When you open the card, the skeleton jumps out. My daughter made one for her dad and he kept it on his desk until Thanksgiving.
27. Confetti Launcher
Take a toilet paper roll (not junk mail, but you probably have one) and cover it with a junk mail ad. Cut a circle of envelope paper slightly larger than the roll’s opening.
Fill the roll with tiny orange-highlighter-drawn confetti – ghosts, bats, pumpkins. Tape the paper circle over one end like a drum.
Poke a hole near the taped end and insert a pencil. Push the pencil fast to launch confetti everywhere. Your living room will look like Halloween exploded, but your kids will be thrilled.
28. Highlighter Window Clings
Draw Halloween shapes on a glossy junk mail ad using your orange highlighter. Cut them out carefully. Then press a damp sponge on the back of each shape.
The moisture makes the glossy paper stick to glass like a window cling. Press them onto your sliding glass door or bathroom mirror.
They’ll stay for days and peel off without residue. When the highlighter fades, just toss them in the recycling and make new ones. Infinite Halloween decorations for zero dollars.
29. Memory Match Game
Cut 20 small squares from a junk mail cardboard box flap. Draw pairs of Halloween symbols on the blank side using your orange highlighter: pumpkins, ghosts, bats, cats, moons, spiders, candy corn, witches, skulls, stars.
Mix up the squares and lay them face down. Take turns flipping two at a time to find matches. The orange highlighter makes the game feel special, not like a school worksheet.
My kids played this for an hour while I pretended to help. The best part? When they lose interest, you recycle the whole game and make a new one for Christmas.
There you go – 29 ways to turn trash into Halloween treasure. Your kids won’t care that the pumpkins are made from credit card offers. They’ll just remember the afternoon you both smelled like orange highlighter and laughed at a lopsided ghost.
Go raid your recycling bin right now. I’ll wait. And when your kid asks to use the “good scissors” on the electric bill, just smile and hand them over. Happy haunting.