Spirit Jugs
Stationed on a walkway or porch, these homemade lanterns will extend a ghostly greeting and good-bye to all your holiday visitors.
| CRAFT MATERIALS: | |
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Clean plastic gallon milk jugs |
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Black permanent marker |
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Craft knife |
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String of 50 clear low-wattage holiday lights |
| Time needed: Under 1 Hour | |
1. Draw ghost eyes and mouths on the jugs. Tip: Leave the caps on while you do this, so the jugs don’t dent.
2. Use the craft knife to cut a half-dollar-size hole in the back of each jug (a parent’s job).
3. Arrange the ghosts near each other and string the lights between them, stuffing several bulbs into each of the jugs.
Tabletop Haunts
Filled with restless and hungry spirits, this spooky abode makes a great centerpiece for a Halloween party buffet table.
| CRAFT MATERIALS: | |
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Pencil and ruler |
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Square tissue box |
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2 rectangular tissue boxes (ours were about 5 by 9 inches) |
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2 (5- by 8 1/2-inch) pieces of thin cardboard |
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Craft knife |
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Scissors |
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Glue dots or double-sided tape |
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Paintbrush |
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Black and gray craft paint |
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Orange tissue paper or paper napkins |
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4 (3-inch) lengths of white pipe cleaner |
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4 (1-inch-wide) Styrofoam balls |
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White facial tissue, cut into 4 (4-inch) squares |
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Black permanent marker |
| Time needed: About 2 to 3 Hours | |
1. Draw windows, a door, and a front-porch overhang (a 1 1/4-inch strip that folds out from the floor of the second story) on the tissue boxes. Draw 2 roof pieces on the thin cardboard, as shown.
2. With a craft knife, cut the openings in the boxes, leaving one side of each door attached and saving the window cutouts for shutters (for a swinging shutter, leave one side attached). Then cut out the roof pieces with scissors, fold them in half, and assemble them one on top of the other. Attach the roof to the square tissue box with glue dots or double-sided tape.
3. Paint the boxes and shutters. Once they’re dry, stuff the boxes with orange tissue paper or napkins and then glue or tape them together. Glue the shutters in place.
4. Now conjure up some ghosts. Push one end of a pipe cleaner into each foam ball and glue or tape the white tissue squares to the balls. Pinch the tissue around each ghost’s neck and draw on eyes. Glue or tape the ghosts to the house by their pipe cleaners.
Origami Bats
Haunt your halls with a colony of these denizens of the dark. They can just hang around, or they can take wing as a bat mobile — tape several to pieces of monofilament and string them from a small branch.
| CRAFT MATERIALS: | |
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Black paper (construction or scrapbook paper works best) cut into 8- by 8-inch squares |
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Scissors |
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Glow-in-the-dark paint |
| Time needed: About 1 Hour | |
1. Fold an 8- by 8-inch square of black paper into a triangle.
2. Fold down the top 2 inches of the triangle.
3. Fold each side flap in along the inner lines shown here, then back out along the outer lines, to form dimensional wings.
4. To create ears, use scissors to cut a notch along the top, between the wings.
5. Flip the bat over and add eyes with glow-in-the-dark paint. To give the body dimension, make a vertical crease down the center.
Amazing Bat Facts
