Halloween Car Decorating Ideas for a Car Parade - Parties With A Cause (2024)

Halloween Car Decorating Ideas for a Car Parade

Looking for Halloween Car Decorating ideas? Halloween is NOT CANCELLED due to COVID. There are SO many ways to celebrate Halloween safely this year and I'll be offering up a few of them.

We are planning a Halloween Car Parade as an alternative to Trick or Treating in our neighborhood and our car needs to look sharp! What better way to dress a white minivan than to transform it into a White Tiger!?

13 Days of Halloween Inspiration

Welcome to the the 13 Days of Halloween Inspiration! Jordan from Jordan's Easy Entertaining and I are bringing you great ideas everyday! Today is Day 10 and all about DECORATING CAR FOR HALLOWEEN! Join us each day for more Halloween decor, food, and tablescape ideas.

Halloween Car Decorating Supplies

The list of Halloween car decor supplies is fairly simple but you will likely have to purchase some items, so plan ahead!

TIGER FACE & STRIPES

• Approx 24′ {Or 6 Cricut rolls} Black Removable Vinyl for stripes depending on the size of your car
• Light Blue vinyl for the eyes
• Pink Vinyl for nose
• (36) Black Pipe Cleaners 12″ long for whiskers
• Black zip ties
• White Poster Board for teeth – Walmart and Dollar Tree both carry it
• Craft Scissors
• Double Sided Tape

Pro Tip: Check Michael's for sales on Cricut Vinyl. It's my favorite but the little rolls add up. I stocked up during a buy one get one 50% off sale.

OPTIONAL BALLOON GARLAND

• 11″ Pearl White balloons and animal print balloons
• 5″ white and gold balloons
• Balloon Letters to Spell KING
• Electric Balloon Pump
• Glue dots to attach small balloons
• Fishing line to string and tie down balloons Or Balloon Strip
• King's Crown

Halloween Car Decor – Tiger Stripes

If you plan of decorating a car for Halloween STOP! BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING……wash your car! The vinyl won't stick to a dirty car.

The tiger stripes are the first car parade decorations to start with. I just cut the Black Vinyl freehand with the scissors. Start thick on one end and skinnier on the other end. The bonus here is that you can two stripes out of one 6″ x 36″ strip of vinyl.

Just think of it as cutting an uneven diagonal line. Then round the edges.

Start installing at the front of the car with stripes going from the bottom up at a slant. When you're finished with the front fender and door, move to the back of the car.

Add stripes on the back half of the car from the top down at the same angle. Leave the center of the car empty.

*Save all vinyl scraps for use on the face*

Tiger Face Halloween Car Decorations

TIGER EYES

I recommend cutting the almond shaped eyes out of the Light Blue vinyl first, affixing it to the Black Vinyl next, then, cut your final eye shapes.

**The catch light pieces in the eyes are bits of backing I cut out and glued on**

TIGER STRIPES

You'll need a little artist ability to create some of the face shapes. But it can be fairly organic and still look great. The trick is to mirror the pieces between the eyes. I used this tiger graphic as a rough guide.

See Also

15 Awesome Senior Car Decorating Ideas in 20245 Tips For Decorating Your Car For ChristmasDecorate A Wedding Car Ideas & Inspiration - Rock My Wedding13 Super Fun Senior Car Decorating Ideas You'll Want To Copy - Teens Society

As you can see – there are LOTS of details on this guy and you could spend hours cutting little pieces. It'll look amazing, but if you need something quicker, the simplified detail on our tiger was just enough.

TIGER NOSE

My children pointed out that the nose looked like a pair of pink underwear! 🤣 Thanks a lot Captain Underpants! Once you cut the nose out of the Pink Vinyl, affix it to the black and cut around leaving a black outline to show up against the white car.

TIGER WHISKERS

The whiskers are a little more tricky. Long pieces of thick wire wrapped in pipe cleaners would be more sturdy. But I didn't have wire and ran out of time to find some……so, necessity is the mother of invention they say:

Create Whiskers: If you don't have wire, take two piece of Black Pipe Cleaners and twist the ends together to make one long piece. Using 36 pipe cleaners, repeat this process to create 18 total 24″ whiskers.

Take two of these long whiskers and twist them around each other all the way down. Then twist another whisker all the way down. You've now got a triple thick whisker wide enough to show up against your car. Although it wouldn't hurt to keep going and increase the thickness to 4 or even 5 strands.

Attach Whiskers: Gather 3 of your twisted whiskers and zip tie the end to the grill of your car. Measure where your nose will be and attach just under the edge so it's hidden. Repeat on the other side.

Now use another zip tie to attach the center of the whiskers to the grill – but be careful not to tighten it too much or it will bend the whisker and look weird. If your top whisker extends above the grill you can use a thin piece of vinyl to tape it down on the hood.

TIGER TEETH

The tiger teeth I sketched freehand as well. Create a slight curve at the top and decrease the size of the teeth as you go out from the center. This used two lengths of poster board taped at the center. Then use the Double Sided Tape to attach the teeth across the bumper.

Assemble Tiger King Balloon Garland

What Halloween car decor is complete without balloons!? Just make sure to use high quality latex balloons and dispose of them properly.

Blow up your animal print balloons to full size {I used 8}. Then blow up 4 times the amount of 11″ Pearl White balloons {I used 34} in various medium to large sizes.

String Balloons on Fishing Line: Thread a large beading needle with fishing line filament and string through the tied off tails of each balloon. I did 3-4 white balloons, then an animal print balloon pattern all the way across.

As you add the balloons wrap push them tight against each other and wrap the fishing line in and around the balloons as you go to keep them tight. Go to the end and wrap tight leaving a long tail of filament.

Fill in Balloon Gaps: Now no matter how tight you packed the balloons in, you WILL have some gaps. To fix this blow up the 5″ balloons and size them down to 3-4″. Tie 3 of them together to create little clusters. Now use the glue dots to secure them in place and hide any gaps.

Add Balloon Decorations to Car

Attach the balloon garland by tying the line inside the car like a huge headband. If you have a roof rack you can easily attach there as well.

Finish it off by adding a kings crown and the KING letter balloons. Use packing tape to attach the letters to each other from the back side, then hang them from the bottom of the balloon garland. Or attach them to the top of the windshield.

Tiger King of the Jungle

Tiger King is a terrible show on Netflix that you just can't stop watching. We bonded in the early days of quarantine with our mutual fascination with the eccentric Joe Exotic. With a larger than life personality Tiger Kings makes for the perfect costume and Halloween Car Decorations!

My husband is an angel and agreed to dress up! I'm kind of dying over here. It's super creepy that he makes such a great Joe Exotic! I'm excited to share more of his photoshoot and all the key pieces to make a Tiger King costume of your own! {coming soon}

Halloween Car Decorating for the Car Parade

Now that you're all dressed up, let's give them someplace to go! Talk with your neighbors and put together a parade this year to show off all your Halloween Car Decorating skills and give the kids a chance to sport their costumes.

If you do are decorating your car for Halloween, I want to hear about it in the comments below. And if you share, I want to see it too! Please tag us @partieswithacause on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. We love celebrating all your hard work!

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Day 10 Halloween Car Decorating Ideas

I hope you love our Tiger King themed car decor, now check out this Easy Hocus Pocus Halloween Car Decorations for a Drive by Halloween Parade from Jordan's Easy Entertaining.

More Great Halloween Car Decor:

• Glam Cemetery Trunk or Treat from Jordan's Easy Entertaining

What COLOR is your car? We came up with a few ideas for each color:

• 𝗕𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗸: Black cat, jaguar, or witch
• 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝘆: Cat, mouse, elephant, or shark
• 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲: Unicorn or White tiger obvs!
• 𝗥𝗲𝗱: Rooster or devil
• 𝗢𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲: Bengal Tiger
• 𝗬𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄: Bumble bee
• 𝗚𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗻: Parrot or dinosaur
• 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲: Fish, Whale, or beach scene
• 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗹𝗲: Monster – Flying Purple People Eater
• 𝗣𝗶𝗻𝗸: Flamingo

Day 11: Join us again tomorrow for Halloween Dinner Ideas