Upcycled Halloween Lanterns – 10 Minute Crafts

Although these spooky Halloween lanterns look effective, they take no time at all to make. In fact, you could have them ready in 10 minutes from start to finish once you sit down with the few things you need. Oh, and I find little lanterns like these a great way to recycle glass jars.

On Mondays, Wriggly (2 years 3 months) and I are on our own for approximately five hours. We usually play in the morning and I get on with tidying up and cleaning when she has a nap. She has started to fight sleep and on Monday, as she would not sleep, I decided to have a bit of fun with her.

Obviously, making lanterns with Wriggly took longer than 10 minutes because I was letting my little lady have fun, but when I make them by myself, they take 5-10 minutes each.

To start with, Wriggly was not too sure about the glue. She kept looking at traces of it on her hand and she had a wary look about her, but after a minute, she embraced the chaos and started spreading the glue on her jar using a paintbrush.

She also enjoyed adding on small pieces of tissue paper, until they started sticking to her hands, bless her.

You can tear small strips of tissue paper like we did previously to make Halloween lanterns, but this time, I used a paper trimmer to save time.

This is what we used:

A few clean empty jars, labels taken off
PVA glue* mixed with water
A paintbrush
Tissue paper*
Halloween silhouettes (I found ours on Pinterest, and they were from there and there)
Scissors
Tea light candles

Start by cutting the tissue paper of tearing it into small strips.

Cut around the silhouettes. For more intricate designs, you can use nail scissors.

Cover the outside of a jar with glue, and add tissue paper on top.

A couple of layers will give a good finish.

Brush more glue on top of the tissue paper, stick your silhouette and cover it in glue as well, so you get a nice, glossy finish when it is dry. Place your jars upside down on a cooling rack for the night.

Disclosure: *This blog post contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on a link and go on to buy the product I recommend, I will get a small commission, but you will not be charged a penny more – thanks in advance!  

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