After seeing many of our favorite Halloween Hunting stores carry some sort of arm or skeleton arm with an attached lantern, I wondered if I could create my own version. I scoured some thrift stores looking for items and between Goodwill and a few Michaels purchases I was able to create a sturdy and incredibly eye catching piece for Halloween.
- Unfinished wooden plaque
- Artist hand or skeleton arm
- Lantern top
- Battery operated flameless light
- Creepy cloth
- Stone spray paint
- Chalked spray paint
- Off white acrylic paint
- Velcro
- Mod Podge
- Cotton balls
So right off the bat I will be honest. This project gave me some headaches, but ALL VERY worth it. With that said, I think I have this down now so you can avoid the random issues I came across. Shall we get started?
Once I had everything laid out I thought I would start by painting the lantern glass to give it a grungy old look. I did that, but I didn’t like the paint job so I had to remove it with nail polish remover TWICE because the paint job the second time was just as bad. These things happen. These photos may appear out of order because of that painting debacle. So….
First start with painting the lantern a matte black. This is where I used my trusty black chalked spray paint. I covered up the windows with painters tape to avoid getting black paint on the glass. Once I painted the lantern with the black, I dry brushed the lantern with the Unbleached Titanium acrylic paint to age it up.
Now as you may of noticed, the ring at the top of the lantern is missing between the two photos. Well I drop it and the ring broke off. Just my luck. No sweat. I eventually added some rope and it gave it a much more rustic look I liked even better.
From here I painted the hand and plaque with the stone spray paint. I sprayed before attaching together so I could get the most coverage on both objects. Spray from about 12 inches away to get the best stone look.
TIP: SPRAY BOTH WITH A COAT OF GRAY SPRAY PAINT TO GIVE ONE LAYER OF GRAY UNDERNEATH. YOU’LL USE LESS STONE SPRAY AND IT WILL LOOK MORE EVEN.
Give both objects a good few hours to dry completely. While they dry I took this time to paint the lantern windows. To give the grunge look I wanted I opted to not use a paint brush. I used cotton balls and dabbed the paint on using different amounts of paint. Light in some places and heavier in other.
As that dries, I took the hand and plaque and attached them using my drill and some wood screws. I predrilled the holes to give me exact places where to attach. This will prove to be VERY helpful in getting the hand and plaque to attach seamlessly. Once attached, I took some white creepy cloth and attached in various places on the plaque and hand using Mod Podge.
Next up, time to attached the lighting. So I found this great battery charged flameless light on Amazon. It fit perfectly inside the lantern. I needed a bottom piece to hold it in place and fit on the lantern. Michaels to the rescue again with a 4×4 circular plaque that I spray painted the same chalk black. I attached the light to the circular plaque using Velcro and then attached the whole lighting ensemble with more Velcro. The Velcro is strong enough to hold it and easy to remove so I can turn on and off the light.
Now it’s time to assemble the lantern to the hand. Like I said, I dropped the lantern breaking the hook. So I used some wispy rope to make a handmade loop. Once the loop was sturdy, I attached it to one of the fingers on the hand and moved the finger in place so it wouldn’t move or drop the lantern.
Add some delightfully haunting lighting to accent it and it’s ready for Halloween! Or a year round glow. No judgement here! Questions?! Please get in contact and let me know!
