Turn Pool Noodles Into A Haunting Halloween Archway To Spook Up Your Yard

Finding the perfect outdoor Halloween decor can be difficult and expensive, but luckily, you can DIY a spooky Halloween archway with this brilliant pool noodle hack. By changing the shape and texture of your foam noodles with some shrink wrap and a heat gun, you can make terrifyingly creepy tree limbs to cover your arch. Once you've finished the base, you can attach plastic skulls and skeletons for the scariest front yard Halloween decor. If you don't have access to shrink wrap or a heat gun, simple plastic cling wrap and a hair dryer would be good substitutes. To really amp up this DIY, you might add a light to the top of the archway for an extra-spooky entrance. This project will also require PVC pipe to create the base for the arch, as well as zip ties and spray paint.

Before transforming your pool noodles into branches, you'll want to set up the base of your archway. Create a square frame using PVC pipes and connectors. For a larger and more ornate decoration, make two frames connected together, which will give you more room to work. If you want your archway to be coming directly out of the ground, cut the bottom poles at an angle and insert them into the soil. Alternatively, you might use rebar poles in the ground and slip your pipes over them. Though it may seem surprising, using pool noodles can make the best Halloween decor on a budget and prepare your home for the perfect spooky party or haunted house. 

Once your frame is complete, make a vertical slit through part of the noodle, and then cut the two halves into more sections, which will become your branches. Trim these pieces so they are straight and pointier on the end. Now, bend the foam into a slight curve for your branch, and apply heat to make the shape hold. Another method is to cut wedges out of the top of the noodle to form branches. The leftover pieces can then be inserted further down in the foam for a short knot in the wood. 

Once you have a rough shape, cover your noodle in shrink wrap and heat it. This will add a wood-like texture to your project, and you can do several layers. Repeat this process with every noodle, creating different-style branches. You can cover your PVC base in shrink wrap as well, and then melt the plastic on that with your branches to fuse them together, but this can be difficult.

Paint every branch black, and then add brown and gray once it dries. If you fuse the noodles to the base, you'll need to do this afterward. Otherwise, paint your noodles with several dark colors and zip tie them to the base. By the time you're done, you'd never suspect these spooky trees were made out of pool noodles. Decorate your archway by zip tying plastic skeletons and skulls onto your project, using paint to hide the fasteners, and attaching other spooky accessories, like spiders.