Handmade Halloween Skeleton Coffin

As the scare season is creeping closer and only 100 days left until Halloween! I wanted to share something I pieced together from a surprise find I found while out for a walk with friends.

Passing a local parking lot, I noticed a small pile of discarded trash, unusual for this lot as it is normally kept very clean form debris, trash, etc, probably why it caught my eye something was out of place. At first glance it was just trash, some papers, plastic, nothing unusual, until I noticed the little black cardboard box shaped as a coffin! I could no longer ignore it!

Not wanting to disappoint my friends who had now stopped to see what in the world I was suddenly so excited about, while they stood giving me the eye rolls and the oh no, here she goes again, look. With all that what else could I do but take it home and make it into a Halloween prop! ha ha ha, therefore, and without any further ado, Ta da!

The possibilities for this coffin box are endless, however, I just wanted to make something simple and quick. I really didn't want it to hit the to do pile. I wanted it finished and ready to display. What I saw for it was something like the Skeleton that I created on one of my faux candles.

I grabbed some wire and tape twisted it together,coated it in hot glue then popped a small plastic skull head on it and done!

At first I wasn't sure I could recreate the skeleton because the first one I made was attached to the candle so it had a support. This one would be semi free standing. Once I got started I knew it would work and perfectly it did! It's completely posable. Moving forward I will definitely be creating more of these.

Well there you have it, a perfect example of handmade Halloween. Taking something and making it into something useful. All of which I love to do! Enjoy have fun and get inspired Halloween is coming!

DIY Candle Poject by Hunter

This is Hunter! My rockin cool nephew! He had a project to do for English class. The objective was to turn trash into a viable working object. He choose to make what else? Candles Yay! Anyway, the title of his project was "One man's trash is another man's treasure!" How perfect an opportunity to use, what else, the paper towel roll that ends up in the trash. He put together a little photo shoot showing his project and had mom send it over to me to share, here it is.

A note about my Sister in law's house. She has the neighborhood house where all the kids end up after school and on the weekends. No matter when you drop by you are going to find kids running in and out. They have the fun house on the block, the one with the very large tree in the backyard, with the gigantic tree house built in it, the trampoline, tree swing, etc... inside there is the huge screen TV for video games, movies, guitar hero, etc. Oh and she always has plenty of snacks and drinks. My sister in law is huge on keeping all the kids fed and hydrated! A lot of cooking and creating goes on there, so it didn't surprise me too much when I received these pictures of Hunter's project, I love it. Thanks Jodi and Hunter!

Here are the pictures, I hope they serve to motivate and show you how easy and fun it is to make these candle so you can have fun too!




Here he is showing the glass pebble that he use to weigh the candle down. How cute!









His candles are ready for glue drips!










Here he's applying the hot glue to make the candle drips.











Hard at work!











All painted!









Finish!



Working candles from throw away trash! Great job Hunter! Hope you got a A on this project!

If anyone else ventures into making these paper towel roll and hot glue candles please leave a link in the comments box. I would love to share them here on the House of Dewberry. Have fun! Here is the link to the Candle How-to

Killer Candles

In my last post I shared with you one of my Candle Pumpkins so this time I am sharing some of my stand alone Candles.

Both pumpkins and candles are made from the same process, paper mache, paper clay and re-purposed paper towel rolls and anything else I desire to use. If you would like to see more on how I create the candles you can read my DIY Candle How To here. Unfortunately the internet is not equipped with a feature that allows one to handle them because these candle are truly amazing, after seeing them and touching it one would definitely find it hard to imagine that they are made from a simple cardboard paper towel roll.

This is the top of the candle it holds a battery operated tea light so there isn't much concern that it can catch fire. Although if you do not have that concern the tea light is removable and will fit a wax tea light. Not that I am suggesting it, this is just for info purposes only. I personally feel better not having to worry about someone knocking one over while I am not watching.

The face features a cut out just like on a traditional Jack o lantern.



This is the bottom where the light box is attached which not only lights up the inside of the candle but it makes a great stand for the candle.


The light box changes color making for a spectacular light display the inside of the candle I make white which reflects the color better.


In this picture I bounced light off of it from an outside source. There are so many ways to display these, they are just as creepy with the lights on as in the dark.




If you have any questions I love to share so feel free to ask.
Enjoy!
Madame Dewberry