Ghost Luminaries

I bought this small Taste of Home halloween magazine last week.  It's got lots of good stuff in there to be honest... one of the things that I thought would be fun and that the girls also latched onto was this.  I'm one of the "room parents" for both Louise and Olivia's Kindergarten classes and I have been trying to find craft ideas that we can do as an activity for their halloween party.  This seemed perfect...

I have to say it's a lot of fun.  I had a blast making this with Olivia.  Louise didn't seem to enjoy it as much as she was having problems getting the glue and the tissue paper onto the jar.  She got there in the end though but I did sense that she wasn't really keen on the whole thing.  She was just doing it because Olivia and I were doing it.

I have to say I loved Olivia's approach on this.  I bought a luminary from Pottery Barn which is a mummy so she wanted to do hers to look like a mummy.  So to make hers look like a mummy she was pasting the strips of tissue paper horizontally.  I was quite surprised at how clever she can be.

I don't own the copyright to this.  This is entirely Taste of Home so if you end up copying any of the text following please credit them.  The photos are mine so if you copy them - I will get a 6 year old to hunt you down and glue tissue paper to you.

Materials needed:- wide-mouth jars
- face template
- black tissue paper
- white tissue paper
- decoupage glue
- scissors
- tealight candles or electric candles
- sealant (optional)

Method:Cut colored or white tissues paper into 6 to 8 inch strips.
Brush a thin coat of decoupage glue on each jar.
Lay tissue paper strips vertically over the jar, layering only enough to cover the gaps.
Cut face template and trace desired template onto black tissue paper; cut out shapes.
Place face shapes on jar and affix with 2 or 3 thin coats of decoupage glue.  Let dry completely.
If needed spray jars with sealant to protect designs.
Illuminate with a tealight candle or an electric candle.

So I decided to cut the strips a bit smaller - just to make it more interesting... either that or I didn't read the instructions properly (with me it's probably the second part...).  I like the look of the strips being cut smaller to be honest.  The smaller/thinner strips also allowed for Olivia's mummy to look more like a mummy.  I didn't trace the template onto tissue paper - I just cut them straight from the printer.  Although considering I now have an inkjet (thanks to shennigans of broken printer and superglued fingers), I did find that the ink was starting to run slightly with the glue.

Speaking of glue.  Now I am not the worlds craftiest person.  I am reasonably new to all this craft stuff (apart from High School but that was like eons ago).  I have tried stuff in the past but it has tended to backfire on me or it's just become a comedy of errors (Michael's great attempt at sewing as a perfect example).  Now I had no idea of what decoupage glue is - google does though... I think I would be lost without google.  Anyway it's basically just watered down glue - too easy :)