Halloween phone case insert ideas

Two free Halloween designs

Tap a picture to open it in the insert maker. Choose your phone once and the design is sized to fit, with the camera window marked so nothing important is hidden. Both designs show the same six things (pumpkin, spider, skull, witch hat, ghost and candy), so you can print one for yourself and the other for a friend.

Halloween to color
Black-and-white outlines for pencils or crayons

Halloween night
Full-colour, ready to print

Pick an idea by effort

Times are our rough estimates, not measurements.

10 Halloween insert ideas

1. Color the Halloween page. Pumpkin orange, spider purple, ghost left white. Use the coloring design above, and print a second copy so a child can try colours on the first.
2. Halloween night, printed as is. The purple sky design needs nothing but a printer; glossy photo paper makes the orange and purple stronger.
3. Draw your own. Print a blank template for your phone and let a child draw a monster family. Read how kids make their own inserts.
4. Costume photo. A good photo of the costume, cropped tall, with the face in the lower two thirds so the camera window does not cover it. Make a photo insert.
5. Black-and-white spooky portrait. Apply the black-and-white filter to a photo taken in dim light for a moody look.
6. “Trick or treat” in handwriting. Short text on a plain orange or black background, placed below the camera area.
7. Paper-cut silhouette. Cut a bat, cat or tree from black paper, glue it on a pale orange insert and slide it in. Keep it flat so the case still closes.
8. Pumpkin patch photo. A close crop of pumpkins in daylight, kept simple so it reads at phone size.
9. Candy count. A small tally grid you tick as the evening goes on: one box per house.
10. Haunted house to draw. Print the blank template, draw a house with lit windows in yellow, then add ghosts in the windows.

Why Halloween looks the way it does

The symbols on a Halloween insert have a long history, and knowing it helps you choose what to draw. Wikipedia’s Halloween article traces the festival’s roots to Samhain, a Gaelic celebration of the end of the harvest, held around 31 October to 1 November, and notes that the name comes from “All Hallows’ Eve”, the evening before All Hallows’ Day on 1 November. (Wikipedia: Halloween.) The same article describes how people in Ireland, Scotland and northern England carved turnips, while immigrants to North America switched to pumpkins because they are softer and easier to carve, with American pumpkin carving recorded by 1837. It also says guising (going door to door in disguise for food) is recorded from at least the 16th century, and that the first known print use of “trick or treat” dates from 1917 in Ontario, Canada.

The article lists skeletons, ghosts, cobwebs, headstones, witches, scarecrows, black cats and jack-o’-lanterns among the common symbols, and black, orange and sometimes purple as the traditional colours. That is why both of our designs use the same palette. It also gives you a ready list of things to draw: any of those eight symbols will look right on a Halloween insert. We did not find a reliable source for bats in that article, so we do not claim a history for them.

How to color it so it looks good behind a case

• Use pencils or crayons. Felt-tip markers can bleed through thin paper and smudge against the phone. If you want markers, use heavier paper. See the paper guide.
• Keep a light touch near the edge. The case rim can hide a few millimetres all round, so keep important details a little inside the border.
• Color the camera area too. You cut that part out, so there is no need to leave it blank, but keep important details out of it.
• Print two copies. A spare lets a child try colors on the first one.
• Let it dry. If you used paint or wet markers, wait until the paper is completely dry before it goes near the phone.

New to cutting the camera hole? Read how to cut the camera hole, and if the printout is too small, how to print at true size.

Colour safely with children

Art materials aimed at children are covered by a labelling scheme. The Art & Creative Materials Institute’s AP (“approved product”) seal means a toxicologist has certified the product as non-toxic in normal use, and the CL seal marks products such as glazes, spray paints and rubber cement that are safe only when used as directed; the Northern New England Poison Center, quoting the institute, recommends that children in grade 6 or lower not use CL products. It also advises supervising young children and keeping small pieces away from them because of choking. (Northern New England Poison Center: art supplies and the ACMI seal.) For an insert this is easy to follow: look for the AP seal on crayons and pencils, leave spray paint and strong glue out of the plan, and keep craft knives with an adult.

• Pencils, crayons and washable markers with an AP seal.
• Scissors with rounded tips for younger children; adults cut the camera window.
• A glue stick, not wet glue, for paper-cut silhouettes.
• A flat table and good light, so the work stays neat.

A short plan for a kids’ Halloween craft hour

This plan is ours, not from a source, and the times are estimates. It suits one to six children and a grown-up.

Children’s phones are often not their own, so decide whose phone gets the insert before you start. For a class or a party where the phones differ, a blank template per phone model works better than one shared design.

Halloween night safety

A phone insert is a decoration, not a safety item. For trick-or-treating, Safe Kids Worldwide recommends adding reflective tape or stickers to costumes and bags, carrying glow sticks or flashlights, choosing face paint over masks that can block vision, and having a grown-up join children under 12. (Safe Kids Worldwide: Halloween safety tips.) Make the insert indoors and keep the phone in a pocket while crossing the street.

After Halloween

• Keep the file. The designs are in the maker for next year, and you can reprint any time.
• Swap, do not store. A paper insert costs a sheet of paper, so replace it with a new design in November: see what to put in a clear phone case.

Questions