DIY Trick-or-Treat Bags Kids Can Color

Every year in our house, the trick-or-treat bag turns into a last-minute scramble. Someone grabs a plastic shopping bag, someone else can’t find the pumpkin bucket from last year, and at least one child is upset that their bag is boring. So a few years ago we started making our own. The kids color a Halloween page, we stick it onto a plain bag, and suddenly everyone has a bag that nobody else on the street has. It takes about twenty minutes, and it keeps them busy while they wait for it to get dark.

What you need

• A plain bag. Brown paper bags with handles work best, but a paper lunch bag, a plain cotton tote or even an old pillowcase will do.
• A printed Halloween page. Pick one from the Halloween coloring pages. Pumpkins, ghosts and black cats all look great on a bag.
• Crayons, markers or colored pencils. Markers give the boldest colors, which helps the picture stand out on a dark street.
• A glue stick and scissors. Double-sided tape works too if you want less mess.
• Reflective tape or stickers. Optional, but worth it. More on that below.

Pick the right page for each bag

A bag is small, so big shapes with thick lines work better than busy scenes. For little ones, a single smiling pumpkin or a friendly ghost is perfect. They can fill it in quickly and it still reads clearly from a distance. Older kids usually want something with more detail, like a haunted house or a witch cat, and that’s fine as long as the main shape is easy to spot. If you’re not sure which level suits which child, the difficulty guide explains how I rate every page.

Print on regular paper for paper bags. For a tote, light cardstock holds up better and doesn’t crease as much when the bag gets full. There’s more on paper and printer settings in my guide to printing coloring pages on A4 and US Letter.

Three bag styles we keep coming back to

1. The classic paper bag

Color the page, cut around the picture with a small border, and glue it to the front of a paper bag with handles. Press it flat for a minute so the edges don’t lift. This is the quickest version and the one little kids can almost do on their own. The only downside is rain, so keep a spare bag in your pocket if the forecast looks wet.

2. The two-sided bag

Print two different pages, one for the front and one for the back. A pumpkin on one side and a ghost on the other gives kids something to show off whichever way the bag turns. It’s also a nice fix when siblings can’t agree on a design, because each one gets to choose a side.

3. The tote they’ll keep

For a bag that lasts beyond one night, use a plain cotton tote and iron-on transfer paper. Follow the instructions on the transfer paper pack, since most need the image printed mirrored. Kids color the page first, then you scan or photograph it and print it onto the transfer sheet. The ironing is a grown-up job, but the result is a bag that comes out every October.

Make it easy to see after dark

Most trick-or-treating happens as it’s getting dark, so it’s worth making the bag easy for drivers to spot. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests choosing a colorful treat bag and adding reflective tape or glow-in-the-dark elements, and Safe Kids Worldwide recommends reflective tape or stickers on both costumes and bags. A strip of reflective tape along the top edge or around the handles takes a minute and doesn’t spoil the design. Bright marker colors help too, so this is a good year to skip the all-black bat and go for orange and green.

MoMo’s tip: “Glue the picture on before you add any glitter. Glitter first, and you’ll be finding it in the carpet until Christmas.”

Keeping it simple with little ones

With toddlers and preschoolers, do the cutting ahead of time and let them handle the coloring and the gluing. A glue stick is much easier for small hands than liquid glue. Write their name on the back of the bag in big letters, because on a busy street every orange bag starts to look the same. And keep expectations low. A pumpkin that’s half purple and half scribble is still the best bag on the block as far as they’re concerned.

Turn bag-making into part of the party

If you have friends coming over before trick-or-treating, set up a bag table as the first activity. Lay out a stack of printed pages, some markers and a pile of plain bags, and let everyone make their own while the last guests arrive. It calms the room down before everyone heads out. If you need a few more ideas for the rest of the evening, I put together a list of Halloween party games you can print at home.

When the night is over, the bags make good decorations too. Hang them on the door handles or line them up on the windowsill until November. Then next October, pick a new page from the Halloween collection and start again.

Written by Martin, founder of Coloring.photos and dad of three.