One of the great things about cupcakes (besides the fact that they're delicious) is their versatility – if you wanted to, you could decorate each one in a batch differently. The following Halloween cupcake decorating ideas work great with either homemade or store-bought cupcakes.

Coarsely chop yogurt-covered pretzels and stick them on chocolate-frosted cupcakes so that the ends are poking out like bones coming out of the graveyard. Fashion edible gravestones out of gumdrop candy and place them next to the bones.

Use large and small marshmallows to create ghostly shapes. Roll the marshmallows with your hands until they soften and start to lose their shape, then place the ghosts on top of frosted cupcakes.

Crush chocolate cookies or graham crackers and spoon some of the "dirt" on top of frosted cupcakes, pressing lightly into the frosting. Then place a pumpkin-shaped candy in the middle of the dirt.

Use the same technique for "dirt" as you used for the Pumpkin Patch cupcakes, except top this dirt with gummy worms and candy bugs instead.

If using already-frosted vanilla cupcakes, flatten the tops with a spreading knife to make them smooth. Place one dot of brown icing in the center of each cupcake and pipe the icing in two concentric circles around the dot. Take a toothpick and run the tip from the dot in the center out to the edges. Repeat this technique three more times until the icing resembles a spider web. For added authenticity, you can "catch" a piece of candy corn in the web.

Place a dab of frosting between a black gumdrop and the top of a chocolate sandwich cookie; the frosting will act like glue and the final result will resemble a witch's hat, which can be placed right on top of a frosted cupcake.

If using already-frosted vanilla cupcakes, smooth the frosting into a nice dome. Use brown frosting in a tube to pipe an eye onto the cupcake and use red frosting in a tube to make the eye bloodshot. Nestle a colored chocolate candy in the center of the eye for the pupil.

For these cupcakes, you'll need orange-tinted frosting, yellow-tinted frosting and white frosting. Place all three in separate plastic bags and cut one corner of each bag to allow for piping. Pipe an outside ring of orange frosting, fill that with a ring of white frosting, and then dot the center with yellow frosting to resemble a candy corn. As a final touch, place a candy corn in the middle of each cupcake.

Make edible clay by adding powdered sugar to canned vanilla frosting until the mixture is thick enough to roll. Roll pea-sized pieces on a board dusted with powdered sugar and shape them into fingers. Use toothpicks and food coloring to create a nail or use food coloring to "paint" the nails. Place your edible fingers on your cupcakes and dot the severed side of the fingers with strawberry syrup to make them look bloody.

Who needs to go out trick-or-treating when you can enjoy candy with your cupcake? Unwrap your favorite fun-sized candy and place three of the candies vertically into frosted cupcakes. Cut red licorice into two-inch pieces and tuck them in vertically around the candy for color. Each cupcake will have its own candy skyline.

Take vanilla frosted cupcakes and use tubes of green icing to squiggle over the tops, letting the icing drip down the sides. It should look green and slimy. Top each cupcake with gummy worms or candy bugs.