24 Clever Trunk or Treat Decorating Ideas: Easy, Fun and Family Friendly
Looking for easy trunk or treat decorating ideas? These 24 creative Trunk or Treat ideas will help you turn the back of your car, SUV, or truck into a fun Halloween scene. You’ll find family-friendly themes, candy-inspired designs, sports ideas, and DIY decorations that work especially well for church Trunk or Treat events.
I photographed Trunk or Treat events at my church for several years, and these were some of the most creative designs I saw. My favorites are the interactive displays that give children something fun to do while they collect their candy.
Our collection of Trunk or Treat Ideas is not spooky, just good family fun.
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24 Clever Trunk or Treat Decorating Ideas
Family-friendly, not scary ways to do trunk decorating for your Halloween event. Any of these inexpensive trunk or treat decorating ideas are suitable for a church event. Many can be set up in a matter of minutes with a little prep, like the Emoji idea or the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown idea. Bible themes are included for your church Trunk or Treat event.
Trunk or Treat Decorating Ideas at a glance
Scroll down to see the photos from each of these 24 ways to decorate your car for trunk or treat. All of these cute Trunk or Treat ideas are suitable for your church event.
- Toy Cars parked in front of a movie screen in the back of an SUV.
- Race Car Theme Trunk or Treat in the back of a minivan.
- Double Bubble, Bubble Gum theme trunk or treat in the back of a car is a simple design you can do in a matter of minutes.
- Cat-in-the-hat Thing 1 and Thing 2 theme trunk or treat.
- A festive red and white stripe carnival theme trunk or treat with a game.
- A football team theme trunk or treat.
- Angry Birds theme trunk or treat.
- Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin trunk or treat.
- A bakery shoppe trunk or treat design.
- Baseball game theme trunk or treat that includes a game to play.
- Ghostbusters theme trunk or treat.
- A candy cottage theme trunk or treat made with a cardboard box.
- A fun Toy Story theme trunk-or-treat design.
- An adorable Charlotte’s Web theme trunk-or-treat design.
- Noah’s Ark theme trunk-or-treat design complete with stuffed animals.
- A camping theme trunk-or-treat design that includes a make-believe campfire.
- Whole Armor of God theme trunk-or-treat that is very attractive to the kids.
- Glow-in-the-dark trunk-or-treat theme for the Dr. Seuss book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go.
- A super fun Pac-Man theme trunk or treat.
- Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown theme trunk-or-treat with lots of plastic pumpkins is an easy idea.
- Wizard of Oz trunk or treat that includes a yellow brick road craft.
- Super Mario trunk or treat theme.
- Smiley Face Emoji trunk or treat idea.
- Poke-a-pumpkin game trunk or treat fun idea.
The decorating ideas for Trunk or Treat
Clever Trunk or Treat Decorating Ideas
Drive-in Trunk or Treat at Church! | Trunk or treat game ideas for cars, Drive in trunk or treat, Trick or trunk
A fun Trunk or Treat idea for the littlest children. A drive-in setup with toy cars parked in a parking space facing the back of the Trunk or treat vehicle. Add a movie screen in the back of your car.
Trunk or Treat
Use your Birthday party leftover decor for a fun Race Car Theme Trunk or Treat design.
Trunk-R-Treat
Double Bubble Bubble Gum inspired Trunk or Treat idea for your car.
Carnival Trunk or Treat | Trunk or Treat and Fall Festival Ideas | Trunk or treat, Truck or treat, Halloween treats
A festive red and white stripe Carnival theme trunk or treat idea you can do for a church event.
Home Team
A sports team trunk or treat design is lots of fun. Set up a tent behind your vehicle to hand out candy.
Trunk or Treat 2011 :: Angry Birds Edition
An Angry Birds game theme Trunk or Treat idea that is interactive.
Easy Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Trunk or Treat Decor
Make a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown theme Trunk or Treat for your church fall festival. This simple design comes together in a few minutes. It was used on a small car.
Bakery and Sweet Shoppe Trunk or Treat in a SUV
Set up your own Trix-N-Treats Bake Shoppe for Trunk or Treat. A simple and creative idea for your church trunk or treat event this year. Be sure to wear an apron too.
Take Me Out To The Ball Game
An interactive game for trunk or treat. Take Me Out to The Ball Game theme. Set up cups to catch balls and let the trick-or-treaters play before giving them candy.
Epic Ghostbusters Costume and Trunk
A Ghost Busters theme trunk or treat using Cheesecloth ghosts and plastic centipede toys among other things to create a not-so-scary trunk or treat experience.
Trunk or Treat Candy Cottage
Do you have an empty box? You can make a Candy Cottage trunk or treat design like the one Hansel and Gretel experienced.
Toy Story
Make an Andy's room Toy Story design for your trunk or treat this year.
Charlotte's Web
Use a classic book, Charlotte's Web for your trunk or treat this year. It's a big hit.
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a great Bible theme for trunk or treat event at church.
Camping Theme Trunk or Treat
Another fun idea for a church trunk or treat event. The tissue fire had orange lights that glowed when it got dark. Across the top of the trunk, there were battery-operated Coleman lantern patio lights!
Full Armor of God
Another good Bible theme trunk or treat idea is this Whole Armour design. This one is a little more involved but it could win first place if there is a competition.
Glow in the Dark Trunk!
DR. Seuss inspired trunk or treat with Oh the places you'll glow. Use glow in the dark stick on letters. This one has a ring toss game with soda cans. Super simple fall festival game you can create.
PAC MAN Trunk or Treat
Play Pac Man music for the full effect of this fun Pac Man trunk or treat idea.
It's the Great Pumpkin Trunk, Charlie Brown! - Lynlees
Another cute Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown trunk or treat in the back of a mini van. Plastic dollar store pumpkins create the pumpkin patch.
Shop for Trunk or Treat Decorating Kits right here.
Visit my Trunk or Treat Pinterest board for even more ideas.
The last 4 cute Trunk or Treat Designs ⇓⇓⇓
21. A Wizard of Oz trunk or treat idea complete with the yellow brick road. The yellow brick road leads to a car trunk full of candy.
22. Super Mario Trunk or Treat in the back of an SUV. Lots of colorful balloons make this design very festive and fun. The green buckets might remind you of the game. source
23. Smiley Face Emoji trunk or treat theme is a fun idea for a church event.
24. Poke-a-Pumpkin game trunk or treat is a simple, fun game to create in the back of your car, truck, or SUV. source
I hope you have been inspired by the creative designs in this collection with bright, fun colors, candy themes, sports, games, and all family-friendly themes. I like the interactive designs best. Can’t you just see the children lining up to toss the glow sticks onto those drink cans?
FAQ
What is trunk or treat?
This question is answered in detail, along with more Trunk or Treat info you might find useful in this blog post.
How Does Trunk or Treat Work?
Trunk or Treat usually begins around dark and ends about 2 hours later or when all the candy is gone, whichever comes first.
Cars are lined up in the parking lot, typically side by side depending on how many participants there are. Sometimes there are gaps in the parking spaces to allow for games to go in between or to prevent a bottleneck in the lines.
Then the kids are lined up at a designated beginning location. Sort of a parade of costumed kids begins to make their way around the parking lot, collecting candy from each car as they go.
There may be one or two familiar design ideas worth considering to put your own twist on. You will also find some unique ideas which are sure to be a lot of fun. A good trunk or treat lineup wouldn’t be complete without a candy theme trunk or a sports team trunk.
Some churches will have super large crowds and prepare weeks in advance by having the congregation donate candy and sign up to participate with their cars and trucks.
When is trunk or treat held?
Most places host Trunk or Treat on Saturday or Sunday evenings before Halloween. If Halloween falls on a Saturday, it may generally be held that day but could possibly be the week before.
More Trunk or Treat Ideas
More Halloween Ideas
These 7 Super Easy Halloween Party Food Ideas include how to make those cute Mummy Hot Dogs with Crescent rolls, Banana Ghosts with chocolate chips, and Pumpkin Cuties.
Your little ones will love these super duper easy-to-make Charlie Brown cookies while they are watching The Great Pumpkin. FYI, you will enjoy those cookies too.
If you are also a fan of sweet and salty, then you will love these no-bake Corn Chip Halloween Dessert Bars. You get to have some fun with candy googly eyes.
When we think of Halloween, the first thing we think of is candy. I made these Halloween Candy Kabobs for a family Halloween party, and they were a big hit. No cooking is involved.
Do you love serving food in a jar with a spoon? It’s always fun to eat that way for a festive atmosphere. Make these delicious and fun-to-eat Halloween Brownie Parfaits. We added some orange candy sprinkles for fun.
What is Trunk or Treat? More answers about Trunk or Treat right here.
More Trunk or Treat Ideas. These pictures are all from my church event.
Toilet Paper Toss was one of the games at this Trunk or Treat event at my church.
Trunk or Treat is right around the corner! Thanks for sharing these fun ideas! Hope you are having a wonderful week Shirley! Pinning and stumbling to share!
Hi Shirley! I JUST heard about Trunk or Treat for the first time this week (whaat?!), and I decided to Google it and your post came up! I was very excited b/c I recognized you as a blogger I follow, so just had to share that your post is appearing really high in Google searches. Woohoo! And also–great post as always! Such clever ideas!
Well, Happy Halloween!
Cheers!
Shana from Technotini.com
Shana, thank you so much for sharing that with me. You made my day. I remember when I first heard of Trunk or Treat too. Now we go with the grand children every year. It’s so much fun!
These are wonderful ideas! I know the kids must love them.
so many fun ideas! I think the pacman is the best though 🙂
Great ideas here so thank you for sharing and linking up with us at #anythinggoes. Have a great week and see you at the next linkup.
You seem to make everything sound so easy!
Thanks for joining Cooking and Crafting with J & J!
Wow! What fun and amazing decorations. So much thought and energy put into making them look great. Thanks for sharing with us at #WednesdaysWisdom
Wow, such creative ideas! Looks like so much fun. 🙂 Thanks for coming by Free and Fun Friday!
Thanks for stopping by with us Sarah!
There are some cute ideas here. Thanks for sharing! Pinned.
Hi Leigh, thanks so much or the Pin! I’d love to see your trunk or treat design this year!
These are all fantastic ideas! My husband would go nuts over that Colts one! Thanks for this list. Love it!
I really like the Colts one also! You can take that idea and put your own twist on it. The sports themes are fun one’s to me! So many people have such creative ideas, don’t they!!
Wow, these are AMAZING! So many creative ideas…love all of them.
LoL, you’re like me, I love them all also! I like the interactive one’s the best but then those Fall designs with Mums and pumpkins are so adorable…
Your Trunk or Treat ideas are always so much fun! I love your Pinterest board. And the Great Pumpkin has always been a favorite of mine. 🙂
~Lorelai
Life With Lorelai
They did such a wonderful job on the Great Pumpkin design, didn’t they! They are all just so creative!
These are great, Shirley! We just decorated ours for Fall last time we did it – I hope to be a lot more creative this year!
There’s a few ideas I haven’t seen before. We’ve always loved participating in Trunk or Treat! It’s so much fun for everyone – the adults and the kids!
I completely agree, Trunk or Treat, especially when there is a Fall Festival attached are just so much fun!
It was fun searching for new designs that weren’t so common. I like the old favorites too though! It’s fun to see the twist and creativity from each one.