Convert a plastic Halloween treat bucket into an adorable customized DIY Halloween Bucket that coordinates with your costumes in minutes!

Homemade Halloween Trick or Treat Bag

There’s just something so special about a homemade Halloween costume (or trick or treat bag). My mom made so many of my Halloween and dance costumes growing up. It made them so much more special than anything store-bought and it’s often far less expensive. This year, I had found adorable matching costumes for the girls and really wanted Halloween treat buckets to coordinate with their cute owl costumes.

Halloween Treat Bag – for Less

While out shopping one afternoon, I found some adorable treat buckets at one of my favorite stores. With 3 kids and buckets at $24 apiece, it adds up quickly and I knew I needed to find another option.

Fortunately this easy DIY project was a total of $2 apiece! You can save even more using supplies you already have like leftover fabric or used ribbon.

DIY Trick or Treat Candy Bag

Each bucket takes about 20 minutes and just a little love. Little hands can help, too!

You can adapt this project in SO many ways to coordinate with your kids’ costumes! The options are endless!

With just a few simple craft store staples or remnants and in a few easy steps, you can customize Halloween Buckets to coordinate with costumes!

Transform a $1 plastic pumpkin bucket (purchased at almost any store including the dollar store) into something more memorable.

Halloween Bucket Ideas

There are endless combinations for these Halloween buckets. With a little bit of creativity you can transform a plastic pumpkin into anything! These variations are easy enough to do, even with small helping hands, and can be done in one evening.

Princess Halloween Bucket

1.  Paint your pumpkin bucket light pink.
2.  Replace the handle with a thick ribbon (or several slim ribbons) or cut a strip of felt. 
3. Glue a mesh tutu fabric around the base of the pumpkin or add a premade tutu. 
4. Cut felt fabric to shape a crown and add craft rhinestones at the points for jewels. Add to the top of your pumpkin as a crown.

• You can purchase this princess treat bucket here.

Ghost Treat Bucket

1.  Paint your pumpkin bucket white.
2. Remove handles and replace with a strip of white felt fabric or thick white ribbon.
3. Color, draw, or paint a ghost face onto the middle of your pumpkin. (you can be as cute or scary as you want!)
4. Add a layer of white mesh around the top of the bucket.

You can purchase a ghost bucket here.

Black Cat Treat Bucket

1. Paint your pumpkin bucket black. 
2. Attach cat whiskers using string, chenille stems (cut in half) or felt. 
3. Glue on nose, eyes, and mouth using felt.
4. Add 2 triangle cat ears to the top!

Spider Treat Bucket

1. Paint pumpkin bucket black.
2. Midway down the base of your pumpkin add 8 legs coming off the two sides using chenille stems  (bent halfway) or felt. 
3. Decorate to your desire. (I like lots of sparkle!)

Bat Treat Bucket

1. Paint pumpkin bucket black.
2. Midway down the pumpkin base, add two black bat wings made from felt fabric.
3. Draw, paint or add felt for the face.

Unicorn Treat Bucket

1. Paint pumpkin bucket white.
2. Add a gold horn to the top by rolling paper or yellow felt. (also available to purchase at most craft supply stores) 
3. Draw a face using a permanent pen or paint.
4. Glue two pink and white felt ears using felt cut into a triangle shape.
5. Add a little white or rainbow hair.

Puppy Treat Bucket

1. Paint your pumpkin bucket the color of your puppy choice.
2. Add two felt ears at the top.
3. Draw or paint on a face.

Super Hero Treat Bucket

1. Decide which superhero you want.
2. Paint bucket the color of your superhero.
3. Add your superhero symbol on the center of the bucket with paint or permanent markers.

What You Need to Make Halloween Buckets from a Plastic Pumpkin Bucket

• Plastic Pumpkin Bucket
• Spray Paint (I used Rust-Oleum in gold color)
• Scissors
• Felt (for the owl, I used a piece of each white, off white, light pink, light green, tan, and black.)
• Glue or Glue Gun (I preferred the glue gun as I thought it adhered much better to the plastic bucket)
• Ribbon, Rope or Felt for the handle (for this owl trick or treat bucket, I used a thick and silky in texture ribbon.

How to Make a Halloween Bucket

1. Cut off the plastic handles with scissors to permanently remove. (We will be replacing with ribbon later on)
2. Paint the bucket by lightly spraying the interior of your pumpkin and allowing it to dry to the touch. (I chose to do this outside as it can get a little messy.) 
3. Repeat with 2-3 coats of paint on the inside. Follow the same process for coating the outside of the pumpkin.
4. Cut shapes from felt for eyes, feet, wings, ears, and nose. (no patterns necessary). I also added a few optional flowers and leaves for decoration. 
5. Glue ears behind the rim on the front facing side of the bucket.
6. Add face pieces starting with the eyes followed by the nose then wings. Allow wings to flap to only gluing the top of the wing to the bucket.
7. Add decorative flowers on the front of the bucket near the ears. (I only added a flower to one side but more flowers would also look adorable!)
8. Attach the feet to the bottom of the bucket.
9. For the handle, cut a large piece of ribbon, felt or rope, and roll to insert through the hole. Tie a knot, cut the end of the ribbon and do the same for the other side.

NOTE: I like to cut a longer piece of ribbon to allow room for knotting and any possible mistakes.

NOTE: If you are doing one of the variations, some colors will need more coats of paint and some may need less. Your choice of paint may also affect this. I found that Rust-Oleum coated the plastic pumpkin well with only 2-3 coats of spray paint.

Felt Colors

• Light Pink – ears, nose, feet, center of flower
• Light Green – leaves
• White – eyes
• Off White – Wings
• Tan – eyes
• Black – eyes

NOTE: If you are layering felt pieces, glue them together before adhering to the bucket.

It’s such a simple and sweet project that you can enjoy for years to come!

This personalized trick or treat candy bucket has held up well over time. It would also make a sweet gift basket for a young person’s party.

Look at those sweet lil feet.

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