Halloween Craft: An Upcycled Ghostly Winter Queen

When I finished a jar of hot chocolate the other day, I had a moment of inspiration that it could be upcycled into a Halloween ghost.

I took the thin plastic with the brand name and pictures off the jar, leaving the white plastic below. I drew on eyes and a mouth (admittedly not very well) with a marker pen. I stuck strands of leftover wool around the top and painted the lid silver.

Inside, I put an LED tealight. As the jar was plastic, a real candle would have melted it.

Afterwards, I kind of thought the painted lid looked like a winter crown, so I called the ghost a winter queen.

I was pleased because everything I used for my ghostly winter queen Halloween lantern was either upcycled from leftover bits and pieces or was stuff I had around the house already.

It reminded me of when I was a child and you couldn’t buy much in the way of Halloween decorations or costumes in the shops. Half the fun of having a Halloween party was making stuff for it in advance, whether that was a papier mache mask, a sheet turned into a ghost costume or a lantern carved from a swede or turnip (no pumpkins in England back then).

Old bottles can also be turned into Halloween potion decorations, by painting the outside green or purple or blue, sticking on handwritten labels saying things like ‘Shrinking Spell’ or ‘Polymorph Potion’, wrapping the top with string or paper to hide any screw thread, and putting an old cork in the top. You can put LED tealights inside one or two as well. If you have a colour-changing one, that would be ideal.

Here are links to some other crafting or upcycling ideas:
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2018/04/pagan-eye-upcycled-plastic-bottles-as.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2018/08/witchcraft-making-terry-pratchett-style.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2018/08/magical-dolls-how-to-make-knotted-wool.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/01/craft-how-to-make-spell-candle-holder.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2011/09/crafty-recycling-earth-light.html

To read more posts like this visit A Bad Witch’s Blog at www.badwitch.co.uk