I knew that just as soon as I made these fun Trick-or-Treators, for my Halloween Party Pack Printable in my shop, that I wanted to created a haunted house for them to spook around in. And my boys, well they whole heartedly approved of the idea.

So we got straight to work, using our favorite craft items cardboard and duct tape of course. To make one of these haunted houses yourself you will need the following:

Materials:

• A large sheet of  cardboard, at least 30″x 20″ in size for the house shape and additional cardboard scraps for the floors, chimney and peaked roof
• Black duct tape
• Xacto knife and self healing mat (or wax paper and scissors) for cutting duct tape
• Hot glue/gun or packing tape to assemble the house
• Black paint and paint brush for painting on roof tiles
• Paper for the interior of the walls of the house
• Trick-or-Treaters from my Halloween Party Pack Printable in the shop (I used the characters from the soda bottle templates here as they were the perfect size for this house but there is a larger size in the download to use as well).

Making the house:

• Begin by cutting down your cardboard to the various dimensions below:

• Once you have cut your pieces you can begin to fold and assemble your haunted house.
• Fold the side wings of the house towards the back. It helps to score the back side of the fold a bit with a utility knife.
• Fold down the right and left sides of the roof as well, leaving the middle peak straight up.
• Glue or tape the roof to the side peak of the house.
• Fold the peaked roof piece and glue to the house (I like hot glue for this part better than tape).
• Assemble the chimney using hot glue and then glue to the top of the roof.

 

• Now attach the top and bottom floors to the inside of the house. I like packing tape best for this step but you could use duct tape.
• Now your house is constructed and ready for decoration! Paper the inside, add duct tape to the outside and paint on a few roof tiles. You can even decorate the inside as a Halloween party! (My boys went nuts for this, and it was actually AJ’s idea to add the duct tape spiderweb. He’s genius!). Really the decorative options are plentiful so have fun with it! We sure did and just had to make a spooky tree and ghost coming out of the chimney to top things off.

The kids have been playing non-stop with their little trick-or-treaters in their new haunted mansion. And can I just say it’s hilarious to overhear their play banter? I’ve hear talks of crushes, soda pop mishaps and much much more.

And if you make a house for your Trick-or-Treaters please do share! It’s so fun to see what you come up with!