Spooky but Safe: Wildlife-Friendly Ways to Decorate for Halloween

It’s that time of year again! Get ready to break out your best Halloween decorations and make your house the spookiest on the street. Trick-or-treaters love a delightfully decorated home, and it truly is a fun time for everyone involved. Many modern-day decorations pose a threat to wildlife and pets, but some are wildlife safe. In this article, we cover a variety of ways to make your house frightfully festive in ways that don’t put animals in danger. These are some of the best wildlife, pet, and environmentally friendly ways to decorate your home for Halloween! As a bonus, the majority of these decorations are reusable year after year, so everyone wins this round. Now, let’s talk spooky!

This post was updated on October 3, 2025 to clarify the safe decorations vs. those that pose a risk, the conditions in which pumpkins can be harmful, and that painted hay bales should never be given to animals.

Some of the Best Wildlife Friendly Decorations

Some of the best Halloween decorations can be made or grown. The best decorations are the kind with sentimental value wrapped around tradition. Depending on what part of the world or state in the US you live in, your idea of Halloween decorations may differ a bit from house to house. One thing we can all do is be more conscientious when it comes to the environment and the wildlife around us.

Pumpkins

Pumpkins are all-natural, grow from the soil, and tend to break down on their own. They also happen to be the most Halloweenie of all decorations. They look fabulous stacked on porches, and a trip to the pumpkin patch is a wonderful start to the fall season.

Make sure not to apply paint to the pumpkins you keep outside. If the pumpkins are not painted or coated with any chemicals, they are fine to break down on their own. When Halloween is over, there are a handful of ways to safely recycle pumpkins. You can cover them with soil in the hopes of growing your very own special pumpkins for the next spooky season. Or you can take them to a farm where the animals can enjoy a special snack. Tossing them into the woods for wild animals to enjoy is fine (the only risk here is moldy pumpkins can cause digestive issues). Just be careful not to dump multiple pumpkins in the same small area (even natural pumpkins free from toxins can cause constipation, diarrhea, and stomach upset in large doses).

Fake Spider Webbing

If you want to make a spider’s web outdoors, avoid using the popular faux spider webbing sold at major stores (it’s one of the most harmful decorations). Instead, try cutting strips from old sheets or pillowcases to use as the webbing. Once you have a bunch of thin strips of fabric, arrange them however you’d like on the side of your house or wherever else you need a bit of extra spookiness. Another idea is to weave your web using yarn! Use thumbtacks to hold the spooky web of deception in place and set it up on the outside of your house, garage, trees, or wherever your spidery heart desires. This can also be a great way to teach children how much time, patience, and creativity goes into every spider’s web.

Bales of Straw or Hay

Surely, you’ve seen others use bales of hay or straw when decorating for Halloween. If the hay is unpainted, reuse it throughout Autumn for decorating or scatter it throughout your yard to provide good coverage for grass seed after the holidays.

If you choose to paint a round bale to look like a pumpkin or bat, it will last for a while and can be repainted to be different Fall symbols after Halloween. Never reuse previously painted hay as animal feed or bedding, even if the painted portions have been removed. Spray paint can soak into nearby fibers, causing harm to animals.

Old Clothing and Scarecrows

Since we’re on the subject of straw and hay, why not use some of it for an extra spooky scarecrow to send chills up the children’s spines? Making a scarecrow is fun to do alone or with children and just takes a little creativity. It’s also highly sustainable since you can use old clothes along with straw to create the body of the scarecrow. Later on, you can recycle the scarecrow into an Autumn scarecrow. Scatter the straw on the ground, and reuse the clothing next year.

If you want to make it extra spooky, add a scary Halloween mask and some burlap for clothing. Get as creatively spooky as you can handle, then set the scarecrow somewhere ominous where trick-or-treaters will need to be brave enough to walk past.

Sheet Ghosts

Sheets aren’t just for sleeping on! Use some old sheets that are just taking up space in your closet to make some adorably creepy ghosts around your yard. Bonus points for using tattered sheets! All you need to make this dream become reality is (of course) the sheet, a metal coat hanger, and something to use as the head. This can be a newspaper, a ball, round foam to stick flowers in, or even another old sheet. Use the coat hanger to make spooky arms, as seen in the photo, and a string, ribbon, metal, or whatever you see fit to hang the ghost from a tree, bush, or your house. Don’t forget to add some black eye holes and recycle them for next Halloween when you finish.

Bats From Recycled Cardboard

This is an easy and fun decoration that anyone can do, and you don’t have to cut out bats. Try making pumpkins, witches, monsters, and whatever else you can come up with. This is a fun project to do with children or friends. All you need is your recycling container and some scissors.

Get out whatever cardboard you have and color it with markers, or for an easier way, spray paint it! (Eco-friendly paint is preferable, due to the small chance of paint flaking off into soil). If you choose to use spray paint, you can create designs and multicolored bats. When finished cutting out your Halloween decor, use a thumb tack, some string, or tape to fix your creations on the house or anywhere you want an extra dose of spookiness.

Monster Doorways

Creating a spooky or fun Halloween doorway is another fun, creative, and cost-effective way to get into the Halloween spirit. Check out some photos of homemade door decorations online, and get ready for the spooky ideas to flood your mind. Since trick-or-treaters will all be walking up to your door, keep it kid-friendly and fun with creepy pumpkin or monster faces.

If you are feeling extra creative, make some faces to use for your garage, shed, parked vehicle, fence, or anything else you can think of. Bring the faces to “light” by setting up a solar Halloween light to shine on your artwork. Another idea to try out is the reverse or “silhouette” effect. Simply tape the used cardboard onto your windows and put orange, purple, or green lights up behind them on Halloween night. This works better if the cardboard is black, which you can paint or spray paint, or you can go with the true recycled theme and leave it “as is.”

Lollipop Ghosts

The innocence and sweetness of lollipop ghosts have been fun for children for many decades! If you don’t want to use lollipops, you can always stuff a big pom-pom into a white handkerchief for a longer-lasting effect. Don’t forget to add googly eyes!

There are many fun ways to showcase your art and spooky ghost-making skills with this project. Choose some Halloween-themed ribbon to tie the ghosts’ heads into place, and string them together with some burlap twine to make a banner on your bushes and trees for an incredible outdoor look. You can also use paper clips to organize them however you’d like.

Use your witchy smarts and devise a fun Halloween ghost-themed school treat for all the youngsters in the class. Consider trying to jazz it up a step more by setting up a pan of deep-dish rice crispy treats dressed to look like a graveyard. Add the happy lollipop ghosts sticking out so they appear like they are floating. Some black cats and zombies would be spooktacular, too!