Halloween Diorama Made With Thrift Store Finds

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Square feature image of the finished graveyard diorama set in place in an old square 11" x 11" drawer that can hang on the wall or sit on a shelf. The background image shows a spooky illustration of a Halloween town with lights in the windows, a haunted mansion in the distance and haunted house in the foreground. This 3-demensional scene features a vintage ceramic witch an eerie grapevine fence in front and a grave yard with four gravestones set on a hill of Spanish moss. The image is on a dark background with orange mini fairy lights to light the inside.

Make a spooky Halloween diorama using thrift store finds and items you already have on hand. I created a simple graveyard scene using vintage witch figurines, but this idea works just as well for a haunted library or pumpkin patch. Below you’ll find a video and basic steps to make your own.

Photo of two ceramic vintage witches. Both are smiling and painted in muted dark blues, blacks and maroon. One holds a jack-o-lantern and the other has a broom with a black cat by her side. This miniature figures are about 3-inches tall.

Halloween Diorama – Video

Youtube video

How to Make a Halloween Diorama – 4 Easy Steps

STEP 1:

Find a shallow drawer or shadow box and collect a few Halloween miniatures—thrift stores, Amazon, Etsy, and Dollar Tree are all great sources. I found the fence and witch figurines at the thrift store, and I bought the mini gravestones for this project on Amazon. Other supplies used were Spanish moss, string lights, scrap wood, paint, glue, a drill, wood screws, and a printable as a background image.

Photo of supplies used to make a Halloween miniature scene. These include an old small drawer, ceramic vintage witches, a metal mini jack-o-lantern, wood fence and a spooky scene printout to use as a background.

STEP 2:

Paint your drawer and use Mod Podge to adhere a background image to the inside. The drawer I’m using is just under 11 inches wide, so I decided to print a background image on 11″ x 17″ paper at the office supply store. This cost just a few dollars, and the colors came out amazing!

Using matte Mod Podge to apply the background image to the inside of the drawer to set the scene for my Halloween graveyard diorama.

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STEP 3:

Adding the miniatures and final touches. First I added a grapevine fence. To my surprise, it was the perfect fit. I attached it to the bottom with two wood screws. See the video above for more details on this project.

Photo of the bottom of my Halloween miniature scene. Shown is the bottom of the drawer where I used two wood screws and a drill in the foreground used to attach a mini fence for my graveyard scene.

Next, I used wood glue to secure scrap wood pieces to the inside of the drawer to create a hill for my mini graveyard.

Closeup photo of a Halloween diorama with a grapevine gate in place and a stack of three pieces of scrap wood glued in place to make a hill structure for a mini graveyard.

Then I used a silicone adhesive to glue the rest of the miniatures, Spanish moss, and mini battery lights (optional).

For this Halloween miniature scene I used GE Advanced Silicone caulk to hold all of my miniatures in place. This adhesive works great to glue multiple surface and I've found it to have a better hold than hot glue.

STEP 4:

Display your diorama on a shelf or add picture wire to the back to hang it up.

Add picture hanging wire or a sawtooth to the back of your mini scene if you plan to hang it up!

Here’s a few more photos of my finished diorama.

Vertical feature image of the finished graveyard diorama set in place in an old square 11" x 11" drawer that can hang on the wall or sit on a shelf. The background image shows a spooky illustration of a Halloween town with lights in the windows, a haunted mansion in the distance and haunted house in the foreground. This 3-demensional scene features a vintage ceramic witch an eerie grapevine fence in front and a grave yard with four gravestones set on a hill of Spanish moss. The image is on a dark background with orange mini fairy lights to light the inside.
Closeup photo of a mini graveyard in a DIY Halloween miniature scene. There are four gravestones measuring about 3/4" each surrounded by Spanish moss.
Photo of a vintage ceramic witch holding a jack-o-lantern in a miniature Halloween diorama. The background is a haunted house illustration. The print has been decoupaged to the inside of an old thrift store drawer and miniatures like the witch and a fence in front have been added the scene for a 3-dimensional look.
Star divider used has two hand drawn lines with a star in the center, used as a content break and signals new or different content below. This doodle style illustration is in a medium charcoal gray.

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