Add a bit of whimsy to your Halloween Porch decorations this year with these Floating Witch Hat luminaries! They even light up, making them a fun and only slightly eerie Halloween decorating idea.
If you like this project, you might also like these DIY Halloween Porch Decorating Ideas!
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Table of Contents
Halloween Porch Decorating Idea: How to Make DIY Floating Witches Hats
Video Instructions
This post has been updated from a previous version to include all of the wonderful tips and tricks shared by readers who have made these Hanging Witches Hats.
Our front porch has a section that is long and narrow. It’s not quite wide enough for furniture, but I still love to decorate it. Last Christmas I hung giant stars from the ceiling of that section of the porch- (see the stars hung at Christmastime)
It always made me smile a little bit when I’d drive by at night and find them lit up.
Since I’m always looking for clever front porch decorating ideas for Halloween. Building on that same idea, one year Halloween I hung floating light-up Witch Hats along the porch (btw, is it Witch’s Hat as in a hat that belongs to a witch? Or is it Witches Hat as in multiple Witches with hats??) I’m not sure, I think both. If you disagree I apologize for my grammatical infraction in advance, there is no need to offer your opinion 🙂
The Floating Halloween Witch Hats project is really simple and I think adds a fun and unexpected element to our front porch for All Hallows Eve. Let me show you how to do it. If you’re a Harry Potter Fan like we are then I think you’ll agree that they add a special “Hogwarts-Inspired” touch to our front porch.
The neighborhood kids always get such a big kick out of the decor when they are out trick or treating. They would also be great to use as decorations for Halloween parties.
Supplies
Inexpensive Black Witch Hats — available on Amazon
Light Options:
- LED light sticks – (linking to the product category on Amazon, not the specific item since the sellers keep raising the prices based on visits from this post, you want an LED light stick with a clip that is battery powered and lightweight. )
- A reader told me they used battery-powered tea lights and they worked well. They tied the fishing line around the wick. Someone else also suggested using glow sticks.
- In the video, I used LED Light pucks. I like these best since they have a hole in the backplate to run the fishing line through. They also have a remote and an auto-timer setting so you don’t have to remember to turn them on and off each night.
Safety Pins (don’t need if you’re using LED light pucks)
Outdoor Command Hooks for Lights
How to Hang the Hats
Before you begin, you need to decide how many hats you’d like to hang on your porch and where you’d like them to be. I recommend laying the hats out on the floor of your porch to determine the number and spacing.
Step One: Attach Command Hooks to the Ceiling
After you’ve figured out where you’d like the Witches hats to hang, attach one command hook to the ceiling in each spot. Let the hook set up for about 10-15 minutes.
Two: Add Fishing Line to the Witch Hats
String about 2-3 feet of fishing line onto the needle. Feed the needle through the point of the Witch hat on the outside of the hat. Bring the fishing line through to the interior of the hat. DO NOT pull all the fishing line through the hat, leave it on the outside of the hat.
Remove the needle and tie the fishing line around a safety pin.
Three: Add the Lights
Use the safety pin to attach the fishing line to the light stick. It can be LED or the temporary kind you can find in the Halloween section of stores. Just make sure it’s lightweight. I’ve had readers tell me that they used glow sticks or tea lights.
UPDATE: Since this post was first written, the quality and brightness of LED lights have improved greatly. You should be able to find a lightweight LED light easily.
Now just tie a loop at the end of the fishing line on top of the hat and hang it on the command hook.
If you want to make these with LED light pucks instead of the light sticks, you can find a video on my YouTube Channel.
A Few Tips if you are making these to decorate your porch for Halloween
- Most LED light bulbs will not last for 30 days straight. If you want to hang these up on Oct 1st and leave them on all month that probably won’t work.
- I turned mine on and off each night. I did not plan for them to last all of October without burning out. In addition, one year I only turned them on during Halloween night. They look great lit up at the same time as the jack o lanterns on my front steps.
- You can adjust the height of the hats as you like, just lengthen or shorten the fishing line.
- Even though we did this on our front porch I think it would be adorable inside of the house too!
Want even more fun ideas? Follow me on Instagram to get your daily dose of creative inspiration!
UPDATE: LOOK how cute they are on Ali Edwards Front Porch (image from Instagram) !!!
More Halloween Decorations & Projects You May Like:
15 Frightfully Fun Ways to Decorate Your Porch for Halloween
Witch Costume Ideas for Kids, Teens & Adults
FREE Printable Non-Candy Halloween Treats
Recipe for Exploding Eyeball Cookies
Free Printable Fall Bucket List
Free Printable Halloween Treat Bags
If you love to quilt or sew you might like:
Halloween Haberdashery Quilt Pattern
More than 25 CUTE things to sew for Halloween!
Jean Blythe says
These are awesome! I’m going to put these up on my front porch. Thanks for the great idea!
carnelia says
i have for grand baby we will have fun this oct. thank you for sharing.
jennifer miller says
What a great idea! Perfect for your long porch – mine is square and I think they’ll be just right, there, too.
Andrea says
Do you have to turn on the light sticks each night? How long do they typically last?
Yes, you do have to turn them on at night. However I only plan on doing that the week leading up to Halloween. They are LED and will last a long time.
Rhonda says
How do you secure the battery pack to the hat? Kinds of heavy
Ours were not heavy, did you get LED lights?
Allison Roundy says
It’s always fun to find a project I like on Pinterest and when I click on it I end up at your site.
Pat says
This is a really neat idea. As to your question about the hats– it’s her Witches’ hat (possessive), the Witche’s hat (descriptive), and more than one are Witch hats. Hope that helps.
That is what I thought… Thanks for the clarification!
Kissy says
So cute!!!
BTW for your purposes, it would be “witch’s hat luminaries” because each one uses only one hat which belongs to one witch.
In any case, I’m sure everyone can understand what you’re intending to say whether it is correct or not, which it is.
Thanks! Crazy how complicated naming a project can be!
Carrie Gillen says
Which witch is which?? 😉 Yes, “witch’s” is singular possessive ad “witches'” is plural possessive. If it’s at the end of a sentence, the apostrophe always follows the ending punctuation. On another note, which this post was originally about, I love this idea and want to do something along these lines, also. I’ve also seen the lighted, wire ghost frames with sheer fabric on them. Love that!!
Carrie Gillen says
*and* instead of *ad*
Carrie Gillen says
I’m not an English or Grammar teacher, but I am a writer by trade and heart. PEACE
Tracy says
Actually, one hat is “Witch’s hat”; more than one hat is “Witches’ hats” or “Witch hats”.
Amanda says
What?! It’s her witch’s hat or the witches’ hats. Unless a person’s last name is Witche, there’s no reason to add an apostrophe between the e and s in witches.
Patty says
I’m sorry are you a English teacher? Get real.Really
Carrie Gillen says
Actually, it’s ‘her witch hat’, ‘that witch’s hat was tall’, or ‘All of the witches’ hats were pointy.’
Nanette says
Exactly! 🙂
Rosalie says
“Her witch’s hat” is singular (one witch) possessive. “Witches’ hats” is plural (more than one witch) possessive.
Shanna says
Love! For the last two years, I’ve hung cheap black witches hats on our front porch, but I love the idea of putting the lights inside! Thank you so much for the idea. The kids will just love it!
laura says
I love this project! For your stars at Christmas what did you use for your stars?
They were from IKEA, I don’t have a photo, I’ll have to do them again this Christmas.
Margaret Taffi says
Wonderful idea! Thanks so much for sharing!
Brenda says
LOVE this! Where did you find the led light sticks?
Amazon, there’s a link in the post to them
Amazon, there is a link above
Sarah @ Foxy's Domestic Side says
So, so cute! Absolutely perfect for your porch. Now I need to get a porch to do this too! haha.
Popcorn and Chocolate says
I absolutely love these! I will have to try this to decorate my house for halloween! Do you think glow sticks would be bright enough to shine through?
Yes, I think they would. My husband thought the LED sticks might be a bit bright. So glow sticks would work great!
Christina Novak says
I’m a little late to the party finding this cute idea. I’m curious how you hanged the stars for Christmas. Will you post a tutorial! Thanks!
I wasn’t going to but will now FOR SURE! I had no idea the everyone would like the idea so much :)… I’m kicking myself for not taking photos last December.
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Elaine says
Just signed on & love the witches hats! They’ll absolutely be on my screened porch…..& front this Halloween ! So glad I found you !
Mandy says
I can’t find the link for the led lights.
JO says
Just click on LED light sticks & the link takes you to Amazon for the led lights. 9.00 for 1 single light.
Thanks for the heads up. I changed the link. It looks like the seller raised the price after I linked to them 🙁
Alli @ Cupcake Diaries says
I am so excited to make these witch hats!! Thanks so much for sharing and for all the links to where to find everything. Makes my life much easier. 🙂
S. J. says
Cute idea! I’m thinking of using timed candlestick lights for use the whole season.
Monica Lujan says
Love the Idea, but where did you buy the led lights.
Karen Desborough-Story says
Did you use yellow or white LED lights? The hats look so great that I’m definitely trying them this Halloween.
They were yellow, but either would work
Esther Shank says
Great idea. Something I would have never thought of. It’s easy enough and my grandkids will love it !!!! Thanks so much for this and all of your other wonderful ideas.
Ana says
I love the witches hat luminaries! I wish I had a patio or balcony to do this. Also like the stars! Thanks for showing how easy they are to make.
Cee Jay says
Hang them from your ceiling/s instead. Just make sure the line is not too long so the tallest peson doesn’t bump into them. That is what I’m going to do.
Rhonda says
How did you secure the battery pack inside of the hat with the weight being even? Also, my hats are bottomless, did you close the bottom of the hat somehow?
katherine says
I’d love your input on a twist to this FABULOUS idea — after seeing it, I decided to do WHITE hats with black light, so they would glow in the dark. I’ve had a “devil” of a time making it work. White hats are no-where-to-be-found unless you want to pay $20 a pop. I tried spray painting fabric hats and that didn’t work, despite multiple coats and flat (not glossy) paint. I noticed that the white boxes from the black lights looked amazing in the black light so I made hats from poster board — super easy to make, BTW. But that didn’t really glow either. I’ve also noticed that white fabric glows particularly well, but research on THAT led me to understand that that is a build up of chemicals from washing (eeew… )
So! Any thoughts? Love love love this idea!
I’m pretty sure it would not work to paint the hats, you need the fabric to be sheer and when you add any kind of paint it will make the fabric more “solid”. If I see white hats anywhere I’ll let you know, but for now might have to stick with black
Debi says
Try spraying with Clorox. Like reverse tye dye
Johanna says
Did you try Glow in the dark spray paint on the hats? It’s a sheerish green yellow color that might work. You might also want to consider having black hats and white hats so during the day black hats are visible and at night with a black light the white poster board hats are visible.
Monica says
How does everyone string these up without them falling? Its a bit windy so mine all blew down as I used duck tape to tape to the ceiling of my porch.
You need to use the command outdoor hooks as mentioned in the post.
Mary says
I also have hung the witches hats and found using fishing weights (small ones) hold the hats in place unless you have a lot of wind. Place the weights on the inside of hats about 2 inches from the top.
For your Christmas stars use LED packs placed in the points of stars and hang them with fishing line.They are beautiful floating .
Sheila says
I put these hats together and unfortunately they don’t look anything like I thought. Basically, a glow stick in a hat. You can see the stick clearly so I’m thinking of maybe putting web in there to try to hide the stick a bit. Definitely disappointed
Deb says
Love the floating witch hats!,Definitely going to use this in b breeze way.
Tracy Ferguson says
Witch hats, would be plural. Lol Very cute idea!
MELISSA says
Witch Hats – plural on the object?
Thanks for sharing ??
Thanks 🙂
Pam Chamberlain says
Hi i want to thank you for the Witches Hat idea I work in a local nursing home and every year we each take one hall to decorate for Halloween and theses will be very nice hanging from the ceiling every year we open up to the commuinty and have a trick or treat for the community we usually spend about a thousand dollars for the candy everyone comes it seems and our residents do bake sales and different things to help to buy the candy and then go shopping for the candy and will sit in the doorways and the kids go up and down the halls it is usually packed and this idea can be used to make our home alittle bit brighter my friend and i chose to do the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown this year but next year we will go back to the Witches and i am a Nurse not a English teacher Thanks so much for the ideas and i come here frequently to see what you are doing again Thanks
Dawn says
I’m still not sure how to do this, but it is so cool!
Gerry says
We have “trunk-a-treat” in my area (homes too far apart for the young ones to go door-to-door). So we gather at a local restaurant and decorate our trunks with a big bowl of candy for sure! This gives me ideas for this years trunk. Thanks.
Fantastic idea! I might have to do that myself!
Sherrie Collins says
What a great idea! And, it’s Witch Hats. ?
S. Johnson says
Witches’ hat
Rose says
To answer your query, the answer would be in this instance anyway, “witches’ hats” thus signifying the hats belonging to multiple witches.
Sarah says
Hello ! I did this last year but I used a different type of light . The batteries in the light were to heavy . So I’m looking at the LED lights that you put in the link . Did you get colored or white ? I don’t see just white . I want to go ahead and order them now but I’m not sure if I get a color it would make the right effect . Help !!
Nanette says
It’s witches’ hats (plural possessive… Multiple witches and the hats belong to them) Very cute idea! I love the stars too!
Cindy says
Witches’ hats
CAROL says
how would you attach tea lights?
Ngaire Genge says
I really like this project! I was wondering if some green lights might be cool? Anyone know if you can get green lights? Or those snap stick things in green? On the grammar thing… You have more than one hat, so, it is hats. Now, do all those hats belong to one closet-challenged witch? Or to a bunch of witches? If it is one witch, then it is Witch’s Hats. Now, if it is a bunch of witches, it is Witches’ Hats. When you have plurals that end in things like “es,” you add just the apostrophe, not the apostrophe+s. Hope that helps!
Mary B says
I love your DIY ideas. Thank you!
Cheryl says
This is just the cutest idea ever! Love it!
amanda says
i used glow sticks this year and they were no where near bright enough! i will have to get the led sticks for next year and try again … even though we got NO trick-or-treators 🙁
Alison says
I have done the hats on our porch since 2015, and haven’t been happy yet with the lighting sources we’ve tried. I might just skip the lights this year…. We also get no trick or treaters, but I LOVE decorating for Halloween.
Sue says
It worked great, I used glow sticks and added clamp on fishing weights to lower or raise the lights or hats.
Great idea
Liana says
What kind of witch hat should I use? I bought one that has sheer cobwebs around the top portion of the hat, but for some reason the LED lights still do not show through enough. Really love this idea just wish I knew how to make it work.
Megan says
I did this last year, and glow sticks were not bright enough. I also tried tea lights, and could barely see them. I was thinking of LED lights of some sort…
Nichole says
This is precious! I’m definitely adding this to my decor this fall. Thanks for sharing!!
phyllis nussmeyer says
I would like to copy the instruction for the witches hat,may I do so. I’m a senior citizen and don’t remember well. thanks
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Bobbie says
I love this decor! I have done this for the past few years and every year they end up a mess due to wind. The strings end up all tangled together. I have even tried to add small weights hoping that would help prevent the swaying so much.
Any suggestions ??
I think I’d try to put them on shorter strings… Mine are pretty far apart
JESSICA WADE says
I am in love with this! The kids want to do this for Halloween this year however I have been trying to find the light sticks and can only find green ones, can you point me in the right direction
Eve says
Try tealights that come on for 6 hours and off 18. Check amazon they have a lot of good varieties HTHs! 🙂
Melanie says
If using LED light pucks that do not have holes on the backplate, how would you suggest attaching the fishing line to them?
if they have a detachable plate, I’d just drill two small holes in the plate.
Nicole Case says
I wish I could upload a photo of my Halloween decorated front porch. Thanks to your easy to follow tutorial, I was able to replicate your idea easily and beautifully! I used tea lights in mine. I took off the battery door, threaded the fish string through the on/off switch, threaded it back through the door, tied a knot, closed it back up! Everyone loves it!
Definitely doing this again next year!
I’m so glad you like it!! I didn’t think about trying to fish it through the battery door. Thats a great idea