I love skull themed crafts.  Most of my Halloween decorations and crafts are skulls.  And I’ve been wanting to do something with one of those nifty clip lights for a while now; seeing them back on the shelf recently has rekindled that desire.  I’ve been wanting to make some Day of the Dead calavera skulls, so I snagged a big plastic skull and gave it a glowing makeover!  Today at Giggles, Glitz, and Glam I had the honor of guest posting on Jana’s awesome blog, where I shared my tutorial.  Make sure you stop by and check it out!  [how to make a calavera skull light]

Project estimate:

• Plastic skull, $1
• Clip light, $1
• Nail polish, on hand or $1 and up
• Sharpie,  on hand

Total:  $2 and up

The post Make a Calavera Skull Light appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Halloween isn’t the only holiday that’s rapidly approaching; so is Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead.   Regina from Creative Kismet lives in Tucson, where the holiday is celebrated by the area’s large Hispanic population.  (Tucson even hosts an annual All Souls Procession, something I would love to witness!)  To bring a little of the Mexican holiday’s spirit into her home, she transformed flower pots into calavera skulls.  I  love skull decor, especially calavera skulls!  [how to make day of the dead planters]

Project estimate:

• Flower pot, on hand or $1 and up
• Paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Sharpie, on hand

Total:  Free and up

The post Make Day of the Dead Planters appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

This week, I made molded papier-mache skulls with a dollar store silicone ice cube tray.  Making molded papier-mache is a pretty simple process, and you can make it with stuff you have on hand. It’s not a quick process though–I found that it takes a few days to cure the molded papier-mache. I am very happy with how versatile the silicone ice cube tray mold has been; it’s a lot of fun. So far, we have made:

• molded sugar skulls
• melt and pour soap on a rope
• chocolate skull pops

I even have a few more ideas for using the mold, and I have heard from several of you who have used them for other projects as well. But now, back to the molded papier-mache project.

Project Materials:

• Newspaper, on hand
• White glue, on hand or $1
• Silicone ice cube tray, $1

Total: $1 and up

Papier-Mache Pulp Recipe:

I got my recipe for papier-mache from Do It Yourself magazine (I have really been enjoying this magazine, by the way!). To make it:

1. Tear up newspaper into small pieces. I picked up a free local paper and used the whole thing (about 32 pages).
2. Pour boiling water over the newspaper and let it soak for an hour. Make sure you use a disposable bowl or recycled plastic container, or something you don’t care about, because a lot of ink comes off the paper. Make sure all paper is covered with water.
3. Drain water and mix soggy paper into small pieces with a hand mixer. The instructions said to use your fingers to break up the paper into smaller pieces, but I tried it for five minutes and it was slow going, plus my fingers got all covered in ink. The hand mixer made the job much easier!
4. Make a mixture of 4 teaspoons of glue to 1 teaspoon of water. Pour over the paper pulp and mix with your hand mixer. Be sure to wash the beaters immediately after you’re done with them. If you need more glue mixture, the ratio is 4:1.

   

To make the molded skulls:

1. Spray the mold with non-stick spray.
2. Push the papier-mache mixture into the mold. Pack it as tightly as you can down in the detailed area of the mold.
3. Fill in the entire mold with papier-mache. WARNING: this will take awhile to dry, even for these tiny 1″ ice cube molds. I left mine in the mold for two days before removing them (and even then, they were totally soggy).
4. After a couple days, unmold the skulls, then allow to dry until they are light and totally dried out. This might take a week. I don’t know because I did the following step:
5. Dry in your oven at 150° F for 2 or more hours, until dry. I used my toaster oven on the convection setting for 2.5 hours.

When the skulls are completely dry, trim off excess papier-mache with scissors (I used kitchen shears) and sand with sandpaper, if a smoother finish is desired. Decorate however you like. I painted mine with acrylic craft paint.

Tips for painting with craft paint:

• You can paint the papier-mache sculpture with an undercoat of paint  or just decorate the papier-mache directly. Mine was muddy gray, so I opted to paint my skulls with white and antique white craft paint.
• The papier-mache is, by nature, rough and bumpy. Don’t expect it to be easy to achieve superfine painting detail.
• Wet your brush and mix with acrylic paint. You’ll need a bit of water mixed with your paint to get adequate glide over the bumpy surface (and the water will help you cover all the crevices easily).
• If you make a mistake, just wait for the mistake to dry and paint over it. Super easy.
• In fact, the way I found to make better detail was to paint my color in layers (specifically the teeth). Paint the black outline first (let it dry), and then dab white for teeth. When the paint dries, touch up any spots that need to be cleaned up.
• If it doesn’t look as good as you want it to, just keep adding layers of paint until you like it!
• Add some glitter or metallic paint for a little special something (I used a few coats of Plaid Extreme Glitter paint on a couple of my skulls).
• I tried to use a permanent marker to decorate my skulls, but I didn’t like the effect. Maybe you will get better results than I did!

So this is project #4 with these molds, and I still have a bunch of ideas. I’m trying to do as many of them as I can before Halloween arrives, but of course, all these projects work with any silicone mold, so keep these techniques in mind for other events.

Now, what should I make with these little guys?

The post Make Molded Papier-Mache Skulls appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Sugar skulls are a traditional part of the Day of the Dead (aka Dia de los Muertos) decorations and ritual. Usually they’re not made to be eaten, but I found these cool skull ice cube trays at the dollar store, and I thought it would be fun to make edible skull decorations. Making edible skulls is cheap, and so easy even a preschooler can do it. I made a batch of them, and after I was done, my 4 year-old used leftover sugar mixture to make a skull all by himself with no help from me. Check out the video (subscribe), or the written instructions below.

These sugar skulls by Crafty Chica

These differ from traditional skulls because they don’t use egg whites or meringue powder, and therefore are not as hard. Traditional sugar skulls (or “calaveras”) are hollow, decorated in colorful icing, and put out to commemorate the dead. These are firm, like sugar cubes, but you can bite into them. Use these as cupcake toppers, or as a creepy sugar cube to serve with your Halloween or Day of the Dead tea or coffee. Decorate them with royal icing to make them look more like traditional sugar skulls (or use Crafty Chica’s shortcut and use mini tubes of frosting from the grocery store).

This project works with any mold, so think beyond the skulls!

Project Materials:

• 1 cup granulated white sugar, on hand
• 2 teaspoons water, on hand
• Silicone ice cube mold (skull shaped), $1
• Piece of cardboard or cookie sheet, on hand

Total: $1

Put 1 cup of granulated white sugar in a mixing bowl. Make an indentation in the middle of the sugar and add 2 teaspoons (yes, the itty bitty ones!) of water to it. Squish the mixture with your fingers for about one minute until completely incorporated. Make sure there are no lumps of dry sugar. When it’s mixed, it should feel like wet sand.

Fill the molds with sugar and pack tightly. Level top off with a flat spatula or scraper.

Put a cookie sheet or piece of cardboard on top of the mold, then turn over and unmold the skulls immediately.

Let the skulls dry 5 hours or overnight, or put them in a 200° F oven for 5-10 minutes to help them dry more quickly. When they’re dry, you can decorate them. Use royal icing, mini tubes of frosting from the grocery store, or colored candy melts to decorate the skulls to resemble the colorful Day of the Dead skulls.

Additional Resources:

• Sugar Molding from Wren’s Cottage
• Projects: Sugar Skulls from Diary of a Crafty Chica

The post Make Edible Sugar Skulls appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Turn dollar store Halloween vases into pretty calaveras, for a more colorful Dia de los Muertos-style fall decoration. Calavera is Spanish for “skull” and is a typical motif in celebration of Day of the Dead.

Project Estimate:

• Spray paint, (Wal-m*rt has paint for .96 cents a can), $1
• Ceramic Skull, $1
• Foam Florist Square, $1
• Glitter, on hand or $1
• White Glue, on hand
• Paint (to paint details on the skull), on hand
• Felt Cut Outs (optional), $1
• Faux flowers (or handmade flowers), on hand or $1

Total: $3 and up

To Make:

I prepped the surface first by cleaning off the skulls with acetone (nail polish remover) to help the spray paint stick better. Protect your work surface with newspaper. Apply one coat of gloss color spray paint to the skulls, allow to dry, apply another coat if necessary.

Once the paint dried I brought the skulls inside for the fun part… decorating! I had my favorite bold colored glitters on hand and some ‘glossies’ brand paint (adheres well to most surfaces, including glossy ones), and went downtown on embellishing the eyes, mouth, nose and adding details. Tip: apply white glue to the eyes, mouth and nose
sockets and then shake in some glitter (do each color separate and carefully over a paper towel or wax paper so you can salvage the remaining glitter and put it back in its
proper container) then when slightly dry you can paint around the eyes and nose.

Next, when everything dried (well mostly, I have no patience) I placed a florist foam square (the cushy green stuff, also sold at most dollar stores) into the skull container and stuck some faux flowers in it. You can buy black roses (or spray paint other flowers black), or you can also make some colorful crepe/tissue paper flowers on your own for super
cheap, you just need some tissue paper or crepe paper, pipe cleaners and some imagination! Check Crafty Chica for instructions on making your own!

I placed some super cute, bright colored felt cut-outs under the skull for cheeriness. Day of the dead is a celebration! These are a regular item in the craft section at Dollar Tree.

Bonus: Check out this puff-painted version of the calavera vase by Crafting ADD.

Bonus numero dos: Here’s another great version from Señora López.

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