Halloween used to be mostly for kids, but it's grown into a holiday that's equally (if not more) popular with adults. Here are 10 sites that provide free or low-cost clip art you can use in Halloween-related projects.
In most cases, you can download an image to your Mac by right-clicking the image and selecting Save Image As from the pop-up menu.
Most of the images are free for personal use, but be sure to read the licensing agreement, copyright information, or terms of use before you download and use any images.
The Graphics Fairy: Vintage Clip Art & Crafts Projects
Image courtesy The Graphics Fairy
If you like vintage stuff, you'll love The Graphics Fairy; she specializes in vintage clip art and crafts projects. You'll find both black-and-white and color Halloween clip art on The Crafts Fairy web site (just search on "Halloween"), as well as some printable Halloween projects for kids to color. The possibilities include a walking skeleton, spooky trees, bats, black cats, witches, and spiders. If your sense of humor is on the quirky side, you can print out black-and-white or sepia-toned eyeballs and temporarily paste them over portraits and photos around your house. Are those eyes really following you? They just might be!
Free Vintage Halloween Witches Cards
Image courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com
Not to overdo the theme, but while we're on the subject of vintage, the Vintage Holiday Crafts web site has a small collection of cute and colorful vintage Halloween cards and postcards. You can turn the images into Halloween ecards, print them to use on Halloween party invitations, or incorporate them into crafts projects. Although the cards feature witches, even the sternest of the bunch isn't very scary; the rest range from kindly to kids in costumes.
eDigg.com: Free Halloween Clip Art
Image courtesy eDigg.com
Bats, cats, witches, ghosts, pumpkins, spiders, and haunted houses; you'll find all of these, and a few more, on eDigg.com. Images are about evenly divided between black-and-white and color. The eDigg.com web site also includes (dare we say it?) a collection of colorful vintage Victorian Halloween images. Click the "Victorian: Halloween Clip Art" link on the Free Halloween Clipart page to view and download the vintage images.
Free Halloween Clip Art by Phillip Martin
Image courtesy Phillip Martin
This kid-friendly, colorful, and slightly whimsical collection of Halloween clip art by illustrator Phillip Martin is designed primarily for teachers and classroom use; they're also available for school newsletters, school web sites, and other non-profit use. Images are suitable for young children (even the bats aren't scary), as well as slightly older kids.
Kids' Turn Central: Halloween Clip Art
Image courtesy Kids' Turn Central
The images on the Kids' Turn Central web site are also designed for children. They're available for personal and educational use (free in both cases), as well as commercial use (small fee). Some of the images are on the smallish side, but they're suitable for a variety of uses in print and on web sites. We especially liked the Vampire Bunny, the Halloween Teddies in costume, and the pumpkin faces.
AllFreeClipart.com: Free Halloween Clipart Images
Image courtesy AllFreeClipart.com
What do you think of when you see candy corn? Why, Halloween of course. (Okay, candy corn may not be the first thing you think of when you think of Halloween, but that's beside the point.) We couldn't resist this site; its tempting image of candy corn had us adding Halloween candy to our shopping list a little earlier than usual. The AllFreeClipart.com web site features a Pacman-like ghost, dancing skeletons, tombstones, the Grim Reaper, pumpkins, bats, a skull, and a green Gummi bear. And did we mention candy corn?
About.com: Clip Art
Image courtesy Bordersets by Inge
If you visit Dixie Allen, About.com's Guide to Clip Art, you're in for a treat. Dixie has amassed a large collection of Halloween art, as well as lots of clip art for other holidays and topics. Dixie's collection includes bats, witches, wizards, kids in costumes, ghosts, pumpkins, mummies, skeletons, zombies, haunted houses, Halloween borders and backgrounds, and Halloween animations. Dixie also provides pointers on the basics of using clip art.
Hershey's Halloween Clip Art
Image courtesy The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company's Halloween Clip Art collection features some typical Halloween subjects with a slight twist, such as the haunted forest shown here. Although strictly speaking, he isn't a Halloween subject, we especially liked the mad scientist clutching two beakers of a suspicious green bubbly substance. The cartoon-style graphics also include skulls, cauldrons, pumpkins, scarecrows, a hunchback, a dancing skeleton, ghosts, black cats, witches, and mummies.
Microsoft Office Halloween Clip Art
Image courtesy Microsoft
Compared to some clip art sites, which feature a sparse, if richly varied, collection of clip art, Microsoft seems to go out of its way to provide both quality and quantity in its clip art collection. The collection includes black-and-white and color clip art, as well as color photos. The images are compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as many other applications.
Halloween Clipart.com
Image courtesy Halloween Clipart.com
The Halloween Clipart.com web site offers a mostly light-hearted collection of black-and-white and color cartoon-style Halloween images. The cast of characters includes a bug-eyed frog, a goofy monster toting a trick-or-treat sack over his (her? its?) shoulder, bats, cats, witches, zombies, ghosts, pumpkins, and vampires. Some images are available in multiple versions (black-and-white, color, either or both with text). Most, but not all, images are free for personal use.
