I have an eerily easy DIY for you today, that’ll give you a great looking seasonal decoration to last you for many Halloweens to come.
Or, if you’re like me, a stylish (if rather macabre) year-round home accessory for your burgeoning Victorian Gothic dining room.
What can I say?
This skull and coffin decoration started life as a plain old paper mache coffin box that Beloved spotted during one of our recent trips to Hobbycraft.
He’s a keeper.
As is often the case, I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with it when it jumped into my basket of its own volition… but it had Gothic dining room slash Halloween decoration written all over it.
- Mache casket shaped box – Hobbycraft
- Black paint – once again, that left over silk emulsion from the Guest Room has come in very handy
- Gold Metallic craft paint – This project used Splendid Gold from Decoart, also from Hobbycraft
- Wooden frame embellishment – I had some Trimcraft frames from one of my random craft buying outings
- Gold or brass embellishments – My two were from a selection I bought from Wild Orchid Crafts for my Handmade Spell Books
- Paint brushes
- Black velvet
- Cotton wool
- Skull
- Red gems – Mine are adhesive-backed ones, but you could try something like these
- Glue
How to make Mache Coffin Halloween Decoration
Start by painting the frame and coffin black. Depending on your paint, it might need a couple of passes. Let the paint dry between coats.
When the black is dry, edge the lid of the coffin and the embellishment in gold metallic paint. I find gentle “dabs” of paint using a brush work brilliantly to help create just the right aged effect.
Glue the frame onto the coffin lid.
Glue on your embellishments.
Lining a coffin in velvet
If you’re good with a sewing machine or needle and thread, you could go all fancy and fashion a small pillow out of black velvet, with proper pillow-like filling.
Personally, sewing is not my forte (she says, staring woefully at the neglected and lonely sewing machine to her right), so I made it up as I went along.
No change there, then.
I just happened to have a black velvet sleeve left over from the charity shop find I massacred to line the inside of the Harry Potter Keepsake Box. As it turned out, the sleeve was the perfect size, so I stuffed it with cotton wool and sewed the ends.
Sew simple.
Ahem.
If you have neither the will to make a pillow, nor a random black velvet sleeve lying around, then there’s an even simpler solution.
Tuck it in like a duvet!
Fill your coffin almost to the top with cotton wool (or some other padding) and cover it with a piece of black velvet, big enough to fully cover the cotton wool so you can’t see it.
I mean.
Genius.
And that’s it.
Not too difficult at all, right?
All you need now is to pop in a skull and you are set. I dug mine out of last year’s Halloween haul. For extra effect, I added some red gems for the eyes and a few creepy crawlies.
Well… he’s been in that coffin a very long time!
Don’t fancy re-creating this project? No problem!
Why not get your craft on and make something entirely different? All you really need to craft a stylish Halloween coffin decoration is the box and a few supplies. Why not have a go and see what you come up with?
Have fun with it and don’t forget to take some photos and share them with the Crafty Crew over on Facebook.
As always, I hope you like this fun idea. Let me know by dropping a comment below.
A hui hou,
