Make Your Own Creepy Paper Mache Pumpkins for Halloween

The obvious drawback is that paper is extremely flammable and so putting a candle in one would be a very bad idea. But your lantern has to be lit up to give it that really creepy look.

We managed to solve the problem by tracking down some battery powered candles. These are brilliant because, not only are they perfectly safe to use in a paper project, they flicker slightly just like the real thing.

If you're carrying it around trick-or-treating you might need an umbrella.

So, what about the good things? Well, firstly, if you look after it the same way you would any other paper mache project, it will last for years. That will save you the money and the effort of buying and carving a new one every year.

Also, the real thing won't last for long before it begins to rot. Not to mention that you also end up with a whole lot of pumpkin to eat.

We made this one using both the pulp and the strip methods of paper mache. We made the armature out of a plastic bin liner stuffed with old grocery bags and taped up to form the basic shape of the pumpkin. This is the same method we used to create Barney, our paper mache dog.

We then used strip paper mache to cover the whole thing before cutting out the features and building them up using pulp.

He's painted with acrylic and poster paints and finished off with a couple of coats of shoe polish to give him a bit of a sheen and to offer some protection.

You can get the step-by-step instructions, including photographs, to make your very own paper mache pumpkin in the October edition of our e-zine, Trash to Treasure.

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