Recycled Jar Jack O'Lanterns!

Intro: Recycled Jar Jack O'Lanterns!

I love to reuse my spaghetti sauce jars to create these beautiful pumpkin lights for All Hallow's Eve! You can use different size jars to make a spooktacular display!

Ingredients:

Glass jar
Orange tissue paper
Black construction paper
Green acrylic paint
Decoupage glue
Paint brush
Scissors

Optional: other things to decorate, a hammer and nail to punch holes in the lid if you want to use the lid but light the candle inside.

Recipe:

Tear orange tissue paper and place glue in an easy to use container. You will be applying the tissue and glue with one hand and the other will be inside the jar.

If your hand is small enough, insert your non-dominant hand inside the jar and then use the other hand to coat the jar with decoupage glue. Lay the strips of orange paper over the jar. Glue and place the paper until the entire surface is covered. Go over the entire surface of the jar with one more thin layer of glue.

Allow to dry for a few hours. In the mean time, create your face with the black paper. When the orange layer is completely dry, glue the black paper on and decorate as you wish.

If you want, you can either paint the lip of the jar green for the stem or punch holes in the jar lid and paint that green. Either works fine!

When the jack o'lantern is completely dry (give it 24 hours after the last coat of glue) place a candle inside and light or place electric lights inside and plug in! Either one gives the pumpkin a lovely glow!

Comments

[mary.c.mclaughlin]

I made my Jar Jack O'Lanterns the same way, used glow in the dark green and regular green paint for lids, and poked a hole for a sprig of green in the center. They look cute! Thank you so much for the cute idea!!!

[mary.c.mclaughlin]

Just ordered my supplies, decided to use glow in the dark green paint on the lid, btw i bought the lids with the holes already in them, and glow in the dark orange for accent spots on the jar. Hope they turn out as nice!!!

[manutea]

I like it, also... very nice!!

[Bullet Proof Person]

add some leaves to the green wires and you have a vine full of pumpkins - great idea - can be used for so many other themes
thanks for sharing

[chuckr44]

So easy even I could do it! I'm going to paint the inside orange, then add on black paper faces. I can buy those LED candle lights for $2 and put them in the jars. They flicker with a yellow light.

[chuckr44]

Ok. I couldn't find orange paint. So I got red paint and will use the same idea to make Christmas jars. Red and green jars for xmas, with LED lights in them.

[chuckr44]

If I have only green paint maybe they will be "Halloween watermelons."

[kellybasinger]

Hee hee! You could make FrankenJars!

[KristenATX]

Super cute! Totally book marking for next Halloween!!

[nail face]

 omg this is awesome! how do you think it would look with beer bottles? maybe the clear kind

[DIYDragon]

These are cute. I'm a little late for Halloween, but maybe I'll do something similar for Christmas. Snowmen maybe? : D

[AstralQueen]

I stumbled upon your blog about the jar lanterns a while back and I've kept it in mind ever since. I made a few recently for the upcoming Halloween.

I didn't want to buy materials for the lanterns so I dyed paper towels with food colouring and dried them in the oven. Somehow, it makes the orange pop even more.

I have the lights on timer so that they can automatically turn on and off every night. :D

[Osmann]

Nice idea! i'll do that next halloween :D

[kellybasinger]

Thank you for all the wonderful comments. And planethalia, I completely agree. This is a great way to create beautiful candleholders for any holiday! Fall leaves or any winter holiday symbols would be wonderful on these!

[boboblor]

Wow, these are most excellent! What a cool way to turn would-garbage into glow-tastic seasonal fun. (& the instructions and photos are clear & comprehensive...always a plus!)

[planethalia]

You could do a lot of cool candleholders this way, for every holiday or neutral ones. I'll send you photos of anything cool I make!

[prcsolar]

I like some of the work by hand. We are in China, not have to play a lantern festival night, as a child are handmade paper lanterns, very beautiful. We carry a good childhood, arts and crafts are becoming fewer and fewer, hardly any of these The East and West.

[DLMatosky]

What a terrific idea! The instructions are clear and easy to follow. It's always nice to see how simple recycling can be. A clever idea that I plan to use. Thanks.

[kellybasinger]

Thanks so much!

[canida]

Nice idea - these look great!