Transform Orange Peels Into A Light-Up Halloween Garland With One Creative DIY

A delicious snack or a canvas for a Halloween DIY? That bag of oranges you just nabbed from the supermarket can be both! (Plus, save the mesh bag for one of these brilliant hacks to reuse it.) Scoop out the succulent interior for eating, and carve darling jack o' lantern faces into each one. Fit them with a wire handle for hanging and string them up as a glowing garland once they're dry. Equipped with an LED tealight or affixed to a string of LED lights, your creation will be cuter than any purchasable plastic version with a short lifespan. Nothing from this project needs to go to waste when there are scores of ways to use orange peels in the home and garden.

Make your own with a bundle of oranges (or a similar fruit), a paring or small serrated knife, a spool of floral wire, twine, or ribbon for the garland and/or tying the individual jack o' lanterns to the garland material, and LED tealights or string lights. Keep in mind that a live flame inside a dried orange peel is a bad idea, since the oil in the skin is flammable. If you decide to dry your orange peels in the oven, you'll also need aluminum foil and a baking sheet. Since you won't be eating your "baked goods", this is a great occasion to reuse foil you've saved.

If you're going the oven-dried peel route, preheat your oven to 225 degrees Fahrenheit. Slice off the top ¼ to ⅓ of each orange, scoop out the flesh, and cut a face design. Another adorable option is carving a letter into the face of each fruit to spell a spirited holiday message. Toss the trimmings in the compost bin, or dry them along with the fruit faces; you can use the peel from this juicy fruit as a fire starter.

If you're oven-drying the jack o' lanterns, stuff each one with a loose ball of aluminum foil and set it on a baking sheet, leaving a few inches between each orange peel. Let them dry out in the oven for about 2 hours. Take the foil out, and bake them for 30 minutes more. Air-dry them either before or after assembling the garland — indoors or out, but keep in mind that any extra flesh inside the peels will likely attract bugs.

Cut pieces of wire a few inches long. Poke an end of the wire through the skin about ½ inch below the cut opening, and poke the other end on the opposite side to create a handle. Place an LED tealight in each orange rind, and tie them to a length of twine. For a string light garland, either tie the jack o' lanterns to the string so that a light or a few lights shine through the cuts, or shorten the hanging wire so that each orange peel hangs with little slack and the light sits inside the peel. Hang your garland above a doorway, on a mantel, or even above your dining room table for festive lighting.