Making Home Made Halloween Luminaries

Everyone needs to find spooky and creative ways to decorate for Halloween. And what says Halloween more than a little fire? Flames from these tin can luminarias will cast an eerie shadow over your front yard, one that’s sure to lead all the trick-or-treaters right up to your doorstep.

Materials for project:

Tin/aluminum cans or buckets

 
Cookie cutters in Halloween shapes

Paper

Pencil, pen or marker

Hammer

Nails

Tape

Sand

Tea lights
Preparation:

1) Begin collecting cans from wherever you can find them. Ask your kids to save them from their lunches, take some from the recycling bin at your office, and of course save your own.

2) Thoroughly wash the cans as you collect them. If you let dirty cans pile up in your home you’ll attract bugs and you’ll have a big chore ahead of you when you are ready to begin the project. Once the cans are clean, store them in a dry location to prevent rusting.

3) Round up your Halloween cookie cutters from that storage box in the garage. If you don’t have any you still like, or if you never had any to begin with, go buy a few from any grocery store or kitchen supplier.

Step-by-step instructions:

1) Start by tracing around the inside of a cookie cutter on paper to make a template. It doesn’t matter what color or size the paper is. For example if you have a witch cookie cutter place the witch on the paper and with your pencil, pen or marker trace around the inside of the cutter. Remove the cutter and the shape of a witch should be on your paper. Repeat this process several times for each shape. Once you have finished with one shape, you can move on to the next and the next and so forth.

2) Wrap one paper template around each tin can and tape it in place. Make sure the paper is facing in a direction that enables you to see the shape you traced on it.

3) With a hammer and nails, carefully punch holes around the outer edges of the template. If you wish to also punch holes inside the template picture you can do so.

4) Remove the tape and paper once the can has been punched. The holes you punched should clearly resemble the shape of a witch (or whatever shape you used).

5) Fill the bottom of the can with sand. This will help stabilize the can in case of wind. But sand will also help muffle a fire in case the luminaria should tip over. Don’t fill the can too full with sand. You want the sand to give the can weight, but you also want the candle to stay near the bottom of the can so the flame stays protected from wind or rain. Also, Wal-Mart carries an alternative to candles for jack-o-lanterns and luminaries. They claim they won’t blow out.

6) Once the sand is in, drop a candle in and light it at night for a fun alternative to the traditional paper luminaries.
Keep the candles coming to enjoy these luminarias for as long as you want to leave them up and glowing.