If you have a chalkboard, you can make some really cool Halloween chalkboard art without spending a lot of money. You can make a scary or fun design in under an hour – and then erase it when Halloween is over.

There are basically 4 items that you will need.

1. Your Design

2. Stencil

3. Box cutter or X-Acto knife

4. Chalk

Stencil Designs:

The great thing about Halloween stencils is that you can simply download them for free off of the internet. Of course, designs range from extremely simple to complex. Keep in mind that the more elaborate they are, the more work they will be to cut into a stencil. I’ve listed a few below that are unique and interesting – but not overly complicated that they will drive you nuts.

Here are a few good ones that I found:

Stencils:

The low-cost alternative to buying specially-made plastic stencil paper at $3-4 a sheet is to make your own stencil.

You can get inexpensive plastic report covers or sheet protectors at your office supply store. The heavier they are, the easier they will be to work with, but the more expensive they will be, so keep this in mind when you are comparing items. Walmart carries report covers for 87 cents, and sheet protectors cost even less.

TIP: Another low-cost option is to use heavy card stock or thin cardboard as your stencil form. The thicker the material, the harder it will be to cut through.

Chalk:

A box of plain white costs a few bucks. However, if you want sharp, crisp edges, you may want to consider wet-erase chalk markers. You can buy them online, and I know that the craft store Michaels also sells them.

You can get away with buying just one marker and just using it for the edges. If you have a large object to draw, like a bat, you can use regular chalk to color the shape and then use the marker to finish the surrounding edges.

TIP: A cheap alternative is to use a wet Q-tip around the edges of your artwork when you’re finished drawing to make the edges more crisp-looking.

A big advantage of using chalk as your art medium is that it is not expected to look perfect, but rather more “sketchy”. Therefore, if you fall into the “non-artist” category like me, you’re fine.