Halloween Decorating Projects to make

Since decorating for Halloween is a big thing with my oldest child; here are some lighting ideas and decorating projects.. 

Halloween Luminary Jars 

Materials:  empty Mason jar, decoupage with orange for pumpkins, white for the ghost and black, white, and orange  for the candy corn,  clear glaze (Spray can), paint brush

Directions:

To spruce up the Pumpkin Luminaries, which are decoupage orange material, you can use a damp rag to wipe them down, and then paint the yellow facial features black. Spray the finished project with clear glaze.

Another way of doing the luminaries is to paint them.  Use One layer of acrylic craft paint was enough for these, but you can add another if you like.  Make sure you allow the first layer to dry completely.

You can make stencils out of cardboard cereal boxes to do the faces.  Here we just used a Sharpie marker to draw on the face, and then simply painted the facial features with black paint.

Paint the jar rims with black paint. Then let them all dry for about half an hour. Spray with glaze using two coats. Let dry for several hours.

Insert a tea candle in the jar and after putting them where you wish to display the luminary light and enjoy.

Below is Sample of faces.

Blob Lights

Materials:  Orange balloons and black for Halloween (You could do this for other holidays like Red and Green for Christmas and Blue, white and Red for the 4^th.), LED light, and scissors

Directions:

Start out by cutting the neck off of the balloon.  Slip balloon over LED light – leaving the bottom of the candle exposed.

To give your blob some shape, pull a small section of the balloon away from the base of the candle and blow some air inside.  Flip the switch and scatter blob lights around the table.

Recycled Bottle Cap Spiders

Materials:  Plastic bottle caps like you find on gallon milk jugs,     Paint and paint brush for spider body, Pipe cleaners for spider legs, Googly eyes,     Glue (hot glue preferred but kids have more fun with school glue)

Directions:

Let the kids paint the bottle caps.  Glue on the googly eyes.  Hot glue works the best because it is neater and dries quickly.  You are ready to put on the spider’s legs.

You will need to cut 2 pipe cleaners in half.  Each pipe cleaner will make 4 legs.  Throughout this project you can talk with your children about spiders so they learn a little along the way.  At this point, we talked about how spiders have 8 legs and that this is one way that you can tell they are not an insect which has only 6 legs.

The final step is to glue the legs to the underside of the bottle cap.  Take your 4 pipe cleaner halves the fold them in half.  Then place them in the underside of the bottle cap.  Cover with hot glue. 

Now hang your spiders on a spider web and you have a great decoration for your home that your children will be proud to have made.

Another idea is to make a ladybug by using only 6 legs and painting the bottle cap red with black spots.

Share your ideas on this or anything here on the blog either here or e-mail me at stipple@verizon.net.  I look forward to hearing from you!