A Month of Spookdays: Jarring

I’ve been wanting to make some jar lanterns since I saw Ghoul Friday’s tutorial. Mostly, I followed it. Okay, I followed it a little. What I wanted was something I could stuff a string of LED lights into, and have vague shapes show through. You’ll see five jars in the work-in-progress. The last one is taking a little longer, and didn’t make it into the final shots.

Since I didn’t have any interesting jars sitting around to recycle, I spent a few quid* at Dollar Tree. I brought home not only the jars, but some creepy crawlers and skulls to put inside.

I coated the inside with diluted Elmer’s glue. One coat plain, then another with some paint. The black paint didn’t mix in well, so I ended up with chunks, which I thought was pretty cool. The jars now looked like dirty chocolate-milk glasses. That was fine, but I wanted more.

I wondered what would happen if I poured a little Pearl Ex into the mostly-dry jars and shook it around. Ooh, mama like. Of course that left them impossibly messy inside, so I sprayed the heck out of them with matte sealer.

Next, going back to the tutorial, I used paint to blacken the top of the jars. The cotton balls came off in the paint a bit, giving it more yummy texture.

For one of the large jars, I darkened some cheesecloth and tied it on with orange twine, then did a little more painting. I first stuffed that jar with orange lights and skulls. The second large jar turned out to be a bit opaque, so I took some creepies and put them right up against the glass, again stuffing it with a string of lights. I removed the rubber seal around the lid so there was room to sneak the cord and controller out the back of the jar.

Even though I’d prepped the lids, I decided to leave them off the little jars. They got LED candles, and something creepy against the glass.

This was great fun, and I’m chuffed with the results. I think these are creepy enough to make the Spousal Unit shiver and give me that “I tolerate this because I love you” look. He gives me that look a lot this time of year.

* I have no real idea what a quid is. It just sounded good.