DIY Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington Garage Door

So I was Googling "Nightmare Before Christmas decorations" for Halloween and came across a picture of a Jack Skellington garage door decal on Pinterest. My immediate California girl response was like, "That's hella sweet!"

I clicked the Pinterest pin and found that the giant decal used to be sold on Etsy for $75.

And I was like, "Dang. That's a lot of money. But it's still pretty cool. I bet I could make that!"

So I did.

Or at least, the thrifty version.

Making Jack Skellington Garage Decoration 

For my Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington garage decoration, I used 2 heavy-duty yard waste bags for the eyes. I could have used just 1 bag for the eyes, but I kept the bags doubled up; that is, I didn't pull apart the two sides. I figured the eyes would be a little sturdier and darker that way.

I snipped and snipped to create the eye shapes. Once I had the eyes to my liking, I stapled the two sides together. I used Duck Tape (the name brand, not the cheap stuff) to affix the eyes to the garage. I used more Duck Tape to add the corner lines of the eyes. I used remnants of the cut up bags for the under-eye swoop and the nostrils.

The mouth of my Jack Skellington garage decoration is all Duck Tape. I started with a straight line of Duck Tape centered below the nose and then cut and affixed additional strips to angle the sides of the mouth up toward the eyes.

Finally, I added a few razor slits through the Duck Tape on the mouth where the tape crossed over the split lines of the automatic garage door. This way the tape doesn't get sucked into the splits when the door rolls up to open.

It was as simple as that. I didn't even need a ruler or pen.

With 2 trash bags and Duck Tape, Jack Skellington materialized on my garage door for what I would say is a pretty awesome, thrifty outdoor Halloween decoration.

Poster Board Jack Skellington Halloween Decoration 

For 2016, I did a twist on my Jack Skellington garage decor, using poster board rather than garbage bags for the eyes. I did have to make the eyes smaller to fit within the moving sections of the garage door. I was a little worried a bad storm would warp the poster board, but after days of strong winds and rain, everything held up on my poster board Jack Skellington Halloween decoration.

For Halloween 2017 I made Zero the dog from Nightmare Before Christmas. His nose lights up and everything! By the way, those are the same poster board eyes from 2016. They held up all through October, November and December 2016 and lived to glare another year!