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DIY Halloween Trail: The 2023 Annual Tour

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Here is the tour from our DIY Halloween Trail in 2023. This year I added a LOT more DIY projects, and a more realistic setup.

Last year’s trail and the year prior can be seen on my guide to having a Halloween trail, and this guide includes information on products that we love to use.

This is the first event that we hosted. We wanted to do two nights this year and we scheduled them for the beginning of October on a Fri/Sat. Unfortunately, we had a big rain on Saturday so we rescheduled the Saturday event for the end of the month.

This did, however, give me time to make a few changes and additions to the trail. I’m going to share this year’s DIY projects for the trail, and then I’ll show the video.

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Please read the whole post so you don’t miss any important information!

2023 DIY Outdoor Halloween Decorations

Skeleton dog that howls inside a faux cage
The jail area from our Halloween trail with cattle panels as the 'cage'
Blow up Halloween pumpkin decoration with floating pumpkin heads in the back.
12' skeleton with a projector of spiders on the side of a shed.
Corpsed skeleton on a metal table in the alien lab
Corpsed skeleton head with a skeletal hand on top.
Creepy doll tea party area at night
Corpsed skeleton with a shovel and plastic bugs/snakes coming out of it. Halloween decoration.
Skeleton in jail costume holding some treats for trick or treaters.

2023 Video Tour of the Halloween Trail

First Night: Halloween Trail 2023

Second Night: Halloween Trail 2023

Planned Changes for 2024: What We Learned

  • Trying to use live animals on the trail was a grievous error. While Spyder made a lovely kelpie, she did NOT want to be away from her friends. It also required a lot of last minute work dressing her up AND dressing myself up. NEVER AGAIN. It was really stressful.
  • I am adding more lighting to the yard, particularly to the area walking over to the trail. It was simply too dark, particularly when we had kids waiting for their turn to walk through.
  • For the last run, we figured out how to setup remotes for animatronics, but we didn’t quite get it how we wanted. Next year, we will have more batteries for these and plan them out better. This made the walk through SO much smoother though!
  • I really need storage for the Halloween stuff. We are considering turning one part of the “alien lab” cave into a small storage area. Alternatively, we could build a prop that could also serve as storage… such as a coffin or horse drawn hearse. Stay tuned.
  • Any solar lights were a GIANT pain in the butt to have on the trail. We needed to pull them out to charge them in the sun. This wasn’t practical. I think I’ll use them to light the lawn walking over to the forest next year so we aren’t moving them all of the time… and this will reduce how many lights I need to buy (ugh).
  • We needed MORE Christmas lights on the same line of electric. By the 2nd date, we’d figured this out and it was slightly better, but I’ll plan better next time. Being able to hit one switch to turn everything on and off was VERY convenient.
  • This was the first year that we accepted donations for the trail. This was really necessary because we buy a LOT of trick or treat items and there’s multiple zones for each kid to stop at. We accepted donations by Venmo/PayPal, but next year we’ll have a small donation bin. It would be nice to offset our expenses a bit, even if we will likely still spend way more than we get. It was just a little harder this year to eat the full expense because all of us were struggling a bit financially compared to past years.
  • I want to build a living grave next year and also add some better tombstones. The cheap thin ones that most stores sell don’t hold up well long term and ours need to be tossed.
  • I’m trying to think of new themes for next year. I’m considering a circus/clown theme.

    So far, we’ve done:
    • Alien lab
    • Mad scientist
    • Creepy doll tea party
    • Kelpies
    • Witches
    • Spiders
    • Pumpkin area
    • Zombie pit
    • Jail

Let me know what you think and any ideas we could incorporate!

Please share and pin this post! If you make this project, share it in our Stuff Mama Makes Facebook Group. We have regular giveaways for gift cards to craft stores. You can also tag me on Instagram @doityourselfdanielle; I love seeing everything you make!

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