Paper Mâcher Jack O' Lanterns 🎃

Looking for a cool Halloween craft? We made these adorable paper mâcher Jack O’ Lanterns using items from around the house!

The boys love a book we have called Pumpkin Jack and they look forward to lighting these on their nightstands with LED lights inside.

MATERIALS: Flour Water Whisk or spoon Large container Plastic bag Tape Scissors Newspapers Marker Paint Knife String (optional)

1. Start by making your pumpkin shape. Fill your bag (it can be any size) with crumpled up newspaper. Pack it as tightly as possible to the size you want your pumpkin to be. Tie the bag off or tape it closed once it’s the size you would like. Next, take your tape and use it to make ridges in the sides of your pumpkin to give it a pumpkin shape. You could also use string for this part to make the grooves. Make a stem by either wrapping the excess of the top of your bag with tape to make it rigid or rolling up a piece of newspaper and taping around it (that’s what we did). Tape around your stem to hold it upright on your pumpkin.

2. Next, make the paste. There are many recipes for making paste for paper mâcher, but we stuck with the classic kid-friendly and easy to clean flour and water recipe. You mix about one part flour with two parts water. You want it to be about the consistency of pancake batter, so keep adding a bit more flour or water until it seems right. Use a whisk to mix until there are no clumps. You can store excess paste in the fridge for about a day in a sealed container to use for the many layers. Next, rip or cut strips of newspaper to use with your paste. Dip each strip of paper into the paste and smooth it with your fingers onto your pumpkin shape until it is completely covered in its first layer. We found it worked well to dip each piece into the paste, then drag it along the edge of the paste container to remove some of the excess, then gently smooth it onto the pumpkin shape, pushing out some of the excess paste as we went. You can overlap the paper a bit as you go. Once each layer is complete, let it dry. We used a fan to help dry it between layers, cutting the drying time between layers to about 4-6 hours. Add layers until it feels quite rigid when you gently press on it once dry. We did 4 layers on our pumpkins. Make sure your final layer dries very well before moving onto the next steps - dry it for at least 24 hours.

3. Now it’s time to carve your pumpkin! Once your pumpkin is completely dry, draw your Jack O’ Lantern’s face onto the pumpkin. Then have an adult use a sharp knife or Dremel to carefully cut out the face.

4. Next, cut a large circle from the bottom of the pumpkin. Use this opening to carefully remove the stuffing from your pumpkin. Remove all the newspaper, bag, and tape or string from your pumpkin. Shake any excess dried paste loose.

5. Last was our favourite part - painting our pumpkins! We chose to spray paint the inside of our pumpkins first and let them dry - but painting the inside isn’t necessary. Next we painted the outside of our pumpkins. You can see that we each used our creativity to paint them our own ways.

We are looking forward to putting these in our windows or on the porch with LED lights inside on Halloween along with our other Jack O’ Lanterns!