My neighborhood is into Halloween, and we get a lot of trick-or-treaters. That makes Halloween a perfect time for fun craftsy projects.

I wanted a fence to guide trick-or-treaters up to the house (and, you know, just to add decoration). But the ones you can buy are insanely expensive for just a short segment of fence. Plus they tend to be really short, and they’re flimsy, making me think they aren’t likely to last long. So this year, I decided to make one myself. This is the result:

Sorry I didn’t take pics all the way through, but the steps are pretty simple. I started with some cheap wooden stakes from Lowes. I got 36 inch, I probably could have used the 24 inch ones just fine (though this does have a nice bit of height). Fair warning, these stakes are meant for construction zones, they’re super rough, and you will get a thousand splinters if you aren’t careful with them.

The other materials were a 25ft black plastic chain, and a set of tiny skulls. Since there were eight skulls in the pack, I only used eight stakes, which turned out to work great for the length of chain I had.

I spray-painted the stakes black with some leftover paint I already had. We seem to accumulate a lot of leftover paint. After painting the stakes, I debated about how to fasten the chain to the stakes. I finally got the idea to just drill holes through them with a 5/8″ bit. Then it’d be an easy matter to thread the chain through the holes—and added bonus, I can take the chain out after Halloween and the stakes will all store nice and flat. So I drilled holes in them. Okay, MrJJ drilled the holes, but I held the boards for him, so I helped! They’re secured on the end stakes with black twist-ties (MrJJ’s idea, he’s a pretty smart guy).

Finally, the skull cap pieces were added. I had thought I’d glue them, but there was a nicely convenient hole in the base of each skull. So I tapped a nail into the top of each stake—MrJJ was into this project by now, and he found some leftover 3″ nails and flattened the heads down so the skulls could fit over them. I could glue the skulls down, but they don’t seem to need it. Plus, again, storage will be so easy if I can just put all the stakes flat together.

Drilling a second set of holes and running another chain through would make the whole thing look a lot more like a serious fence. Or, the shorter stakes would work great if you wanted a short fence.

I’m thinking about getting something like some Spanish moss to add a little more character. Or I’ve got some orange string lights. Anyway, this is a good base to start with.

Happy trails!