Halloween Silhouette Lanterns

I have recently been inspired by some great Halloween projects out there and wanted to get the ball rolling before I start school at the end of this month (Senior year, ya’ll!  Woot!)

I really liked the painted Halloween jars done over at Crafts By Amanda and had wanted to do some sort of luminaries for Halloween.  I also love cameos and Victorian silhouettes, I don’t know if it’s years of being a huge fan of Disney’s The Haunted Mansion, sorting through my mom’s old cameo jewelry or a complete fascination with the macabre, but I have always loved them and something about them screams Halloween to me.

Anyhow, I popped right over to The Graphics Fairy and found a variety of silhouettes to print out at an appropriate size for the front of my jars.  (Side note: check out her “odd” section, I am using many of those images to spruce up this place for our Halloween party.)  What images I didn’t find there, I did a google image search for.  Then once my painted jars were dry I pasted the cut out silhouettes on using decoupage glue, creating some awesome displays for Halloween.  Other than adding the cut-outs, I followed her directions to a ‘T’.

Here is how they turned out!  I’m pretty happy with them, though I would have watered them down a bit if I had to do it again, because they don’t seem to be as transparent as the examples on Amanda’s blog.  Other than that I’m really pleased!

Finished jars in the day

Finished illuminated

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The darker colors were definitely harder to work with, I had to go to a light green and brighten up the purple by adding white to it.  Also, I have the batter powered luminaries in the jars (which you can buy a huge pack of at Costco for a decent price) but I have two in each one.  I may switch to a string of lights, with a section put in each jar, I just have to see what works better on my walkway.

Anyway, I hope this was illuminating!  Enjoy!