free, all of it
Make it yourself
Full cut lists and real finished measurements, plus a heads-up at every step where things usually go sideways. No email, no download. Just scroll.
Every build works in any yard shape, so once you have made one it can show up in whichever plan you end up following.
Alien Console Bank
A stack of instrument panels off the ship, lit from behind so every dial and indicator glows on its own. Built from one sheet of foam board, a string of green lights and a jar of bottle caps, and it reads properly at the distance a porch actually gets looked at.
- $52
- 5 hrs
- 3' 8" tall
Apothecary Bottle Shelf
A weathered shelf of glowing bottles, labelled in a hand nobody can quite read. Built from a pallet board and whatever glass is in the recycling, and it is the thing that turns a cauldron on a lawn into somebody's workshop.
- $36
- 4 hrs
- 3' 4" tall
Bare Branch Tree Stand
Three dead branches set upright in buckets of concrete, so a yard with no trees gets a treeline. Free material, about thirty dollars of concrete and buckets, and it reads better than anything you can buy because it is an actual tree.
- $32
- 3 hrs
- 8' tall
Bare Arch, Dressed
An ordinary metal garden arch from the garden center, anchored properly and dressed to whatever theme you are running. People walk through it rather than past it, it takes up no lawn, and the same arch does a different job every year.
- $31
- 2 hrs
- 7' 4" tall
Floating Abduction UFO
A saucer hanging in the air with a solid cone of green light coming out of the bottom of it, and something small caught halfway up. Two plastic saucer sleds, a hula hoop and six yards of tulle, hung off a branch so the rope disappears after dark.
- $86
- 5 hrs
- 6' tall
Ground Fog Chiller
A cooler, a bag of ice and a length of dryer duct that turns a fog machine's rising white cloud into fog that lies on the grass and rolls. Two hours to build, and it is the difference between fog working and fog being a waste of an evening.
- $68
- 2 hrs
- 1' 4" tall
Lawn Crop Circle
A flattened ring pressed into your own grass, twelve feet across, lit from one side so the shadow does the work. Costs a ball of string and an afternoon, grows out in about three weeks, and nobody else on the street will have one.
- $14
- 2 hrs
- 0" tall
North Pole Signpost
A 7 ft candy-striped post with four wonky arrows and a glowing globe on top. Cheapest way there is to get a real centerpiece into your yard, and it looks good from every direction. One Saturday afternoon.
- $38
- 4 hrs
- 7' tall
Giant Peppermint Candy Stakes
Six oversized peppermints on stakes, all six out of one scrap of plywood. They fill the low layer nobody thinks about, for about twenty dollars. Short enough to sit near a corner without breaking any rules, too.
- $22
- 3 hrs
- 3' tall
Plywood Bigfoot
A six foot four inch Bigfoot cut flat out of one sheet of plywood and painted dead matte black, mid stride with its arms swinging. Stood at the back of the yard with a light behind it, it is the best fifty seven dollars in Halloween.
- $57
- 5 hrs
- 6' 4" tall
Plywood Crypt
A stone crypt front with a roof over it, built like a stage flat: one sheet of plywood for the face, a light frame behind, and black fabric for the sides. It gives a covered-rated animatronic somewhere dry to stand on a yard with no porch, and it looks better than the prop does on its own.
- $127
- 6 hrs
- 5' 10" tall
Stacked Plywood Gift Boxes
Three hollow boxes that stack into a leaning tower of presents, wrapped in light strands instead of paper. They store flat, they cost about thirty dollars, and they look like they cost two hundred.
- $32
- 5 hrs
- 2' 9" tall
Plywood Reindeer Silhouettes
Two flat reindeer off one half sheet, one grazing and one with its head up. Black silhouettes that read from the street the second any light hits them, for about thirty five dollars.
- $34
- 4.5 hrs
- 3' tall
Plywood Tombstones
Four headstones at three heights, cut from one scrap and aged with gray paint and a kitchen sponge. About twenty eight dollars, and they survive weather that turns the foam ones from the store into mush.
- $28
- 4 hrs
- 2' tall
Giant PVC Spider
A six foot spider with a bin-bag body and eight bendable legs, for about thirty five dollars. It goes up in an afternoon, it packs flat, and it is the biggest thing on this site per dollar spent.
- $34
- 4 hrs
- 3' 6" tall
Tomato Cage Trees
Three lit cone trees at different heights, built from upside-down tomato cages and a string of lights each. About eighteen dollars a tree, an evening for the set, and they store flat.
- $54
- 2 hrs
- 4' tall
Overflowing Barrels
The same three drums with the thing that actually came out of them. A run of neon green ooze pouring from the split and down the side, a skeleton arm reaching out of the ooze, and green light raking up it from the grass. Expanding foam does the sculpting and gravity does the shaping, so it looks poured rather than modelled.
- $114
- 4 hrs
- 2' 6" tall
Leaking Barrels
Three drums standing and tipped on the grass, with something green glowing out of a split in one of them. Built from plastic trash cans and a couple of cans of paint, which survive the weather better than anything sold as a prop barrel.
- $78
- 3 hrs
- 2' 6" tall
Wooden Snowflake Stakes
A drift of six-pointed snowflakes on stakes at three heights, cut from lath. Under twenty five dollars, no two the same, and they work for anything wintry rather than just Christmas.
- $24
- 3.5 hrs
- 3' 6" tall