These Mason Jar Lanterns Serve As The Best Halloween Night Lights

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Crisp night air, falling leaves, and smells of hot apple cider make autumn an unforgettable season. It's also a time for spooky fun as Halloween draws near. Thoughts of trick-or-treating, costumes, and scary stories inspire decor to match the mood. Shop shelves hold an abundance of creepy accessories this time of year, but it's always more enjoyable to make your own. One DIY ingredient that's becoming a fast staple in the American craft room is the mason jar. 

These versatile containers were originally designed for canning food, but are now often used as storage solutions, drinkware, and more. In this adorable fall craft, you'll upcycle glass jars into beautiful and functional night lights with items like tissue paper, toilet paper, and paint. These are fun ways to adorn old mason jars for Halloween, whether your little ones don't like to sleep in the dark, or you want to add festive ambience to your home. Among the cheap and easy Halloween decorations you can DIY, these ones are sure to spark joy. 

Get inspired for Halloween by these simple but adorable DIY lanterns. To begin this project, you'll need to choose a creepy character to recreate so you can pick a base color. Green Frankenstein monsters, a white ghost, and a orange jack-o-lantern will do, but there's no real limit to your possibilities. Next, gather your mason jar, a paintbrush, some white school glue, tissue paper in the color of your creepy icon, scissors, and a flameless candle. If you don't have a jar on hand, you can order a set of four YINGERHUAN Regular Mouth Jars for about $12; meanwhile, these warm-toned Homemory Store LED tea lights can bring your lanterns to life. Now, it's time to give your glass jars a Halloween makeover.

Cut the tissue paper into small squares and brush glue all over the outside of the container. Apply the squares until the glass is covered. Once the glue has dried, add a face to your creation using googly eyes, acrylic paint, stickers, or any other supplies you have. Pop an LED tea candle inside and add any additional decorations you like to the lid. Add a hat for a witch, or white pom poms for a mummy. The light from the candle shines through the thin tissue like a stained-glass window for a ghostly glow the kids will love. Use your creations to illuminate your child's bedroom at night, or line the front steps to delight trick-or-treaters. 

If you want a more distinctive (and textured) mummy look, there's an even easier way to achieve it with mason jars. You may not have to go shopping for supplies at all — as long as you've got some glue, tea lights, and a roll of toilet paper at your disposal, you're all set. To start, wrap the toilet paper around the top of the jar once and bond the connection with a bit of glue. Then, continue wrapping the jar until you get to the bottom. Tear the paper off at the roll and secure the loose end with glue once again. Easy-peasy. 

Now, it's essential to give your mummy some eyes or any other facial features you'd like; otherwise, you'll just have TP-wrapped mason jars. Googly eyes are an easy (and, frankly, adorable) way to give your spooky creations some character. If you don't have any kicking around, use a black marker to draw the eyes or make cutouts from black paper. Finally, put the tea lights inside the jars and place the newly made decor wherever you'd like. 

While the toilet paper decoupage resembles mummy bandages (and works well in other Halloween crafts, like these boho ghostly decor lights), it's not ideal if the lanterns are meant to decorate your porch. Toilet paper is designed to dissolve in water, so it may not survive the onslaught of moisture-laden autumn weather systems. A simple drizzle that makes it onto your porch can ruin the delicate "bandages." To make the lanterns suitable for outdoor use, swap toilet paper for something like this Ribbli White Cotton Ribbon. Although it costs more than toilet paper, this mummy bandage stand-in shouldn't disintegrate if some rain gets on the lanterns. 

If the options above feel a bit simplistic, or you want to add some unique artistry to the home's seasonal decor, glass jars offer an excellent canvas for you to draw on. Using paint and a brush or a sponge, you can dress up the jars with more intricate Halloween-themed adornments than tissue paper could allow. Haunted houses, cemeteries, old churches, leafless trees, and ghostly apparitions are just some of the things you could draw to give the jars a spooky feel — let your imagination run wild. 

Before you get to work on this DIY, you'll need to choose a type of paint that bonds well to a glass surface. Some paints are designed to work specifically on glass. However, acrylic, acrylic enamel, tempera, and poster paint will also suffice. For example, this Colorful Acrylic Glass Paint Set comes with 12 colors you can choose from, along with brushes and a palette. 

Once you're ready, start by applying a coat of background paint to the jar. For example, if you're painting a spooky old church and a cemetery at night, pick a dark blue or purple background. Use a sponge to dab the paint onto the glass. This coat doesn't have to be perfectly even across the glass surface — if applied in patches of varying translucency, it will create an intriguing display the tea light is inside the jar. Next, use a thin brush and darker paint (black, perhaps) to draw the subject of your artwork over the background. Once the paint dries, all that's left to do is to pop in the tea light.