Delightfully Spooky DIY Halloween Lanterns

Kids will love making these gorgeous Halloween lanterns that sparkle and glow in the candlelight! My 8-year-old daughter was able to make this lantern on her own (I cut out the haunted house and moon templates for her) quite easily and she is excited to use it in her room as a Halloween night light, with a battery-operated candle of course.

We used different sizes of jars, and the different sizes look great displayed together. I love when we can use upcycled items in our crafts, I always try and save glass jars to use.

Take a look at this oil pastel haunted house craft for more fun Halloween ideas!

I have created a free printable template to go with this craft as part of my free resource library for my email subscribers. Click here to sign up for my email to get your password and grab your free template. My resource library has notepaper and envelopes, color-in postcards, doodle pages and more!

Create Your Own Halloween Lanterns

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Supplies

Haunted house and moon printable templates
Glass jars, we used different sizes
Orange and yellow tissue paper
Black paper
Black or dark silver glitter
Mod Podge
Silver jewel stickers
Brush to apply Mod Podge (I have a few brushes I keep for Mod Podge and glue and keep them separate from my paintbrushes)

Instructions

1. First, prepare your jars. Make sure that they are clean and dry. Print out your templates, cut out and trace onto black paper. Depending on the age of the kids, you might have to do this step for them. We used cardstock, but thinner paper would also work.

Tip: Use a white pencil crayon to trace the template onto black paper to make it easier to see.

2. Get your tissue paper ready. I used tissue paper that was already cut into squares, but if you can’t find that you could use regular tissue paper (I always try and save tissue paper when the kids get birthday presents) and cut or tear it into pieces like we did for our magical Christmas lanterns.

3. Cover your jar in Mod Podge with a brush (I like to use a matte finish). Stick your tissue paper onto your jar however you like. We did yellow on the bottom half and orange on the top but overlapped the colors here and there.

4. When you have covered your entire jar in tissue paper stick on your haunted house and moon. Then brush on a final coat of Mod Podge to seal everything.

5. When your jar is completely dry, it’s time to do the glitter rim. Paint on Mod Podge around the rim, then sprinkle or dip your jar into the glitter. Shake off any excess and let dry. Cover the glitter rim in a coat of Mod Podge to avoid a glitter mess all over your house!

6. The final step is adding your jewel stickers. Our stickers weren’t very sticky so we also used some Mod Podge to stick them on but you could use white glue or even a glue gun.

These Halloween lanterns make such a pretty addition to your Halloween decor, they would look great on a mantle or on your front porch for Halloween night. They would make a great family Halloween craft project!

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