Free Halloween Craft Project for iLoveToCreate: Sparkly Skull Halloween Ornament Centerpiece

Sparkly Skull Halloween Ornament Centerpiece Copyright Margot Potter 2009
(This sphere is 8" in diameter!)

It has been positively Poe-esque around these parts this week and it looks as if it's going to stay that way for a few more days. Insert melodramatic sigh...here. Alas and alack it also means my step out photos for this post are rather dark and dull as well. Do forgive. Would that I had a state of the art photo studio and a team of stylists to make my projects look fabulous, but I am the entire team and this is a 130 year old school house with limited lighting capabilities...therefore I'm dependent on the sun for good pictures.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Sparkly Skull Halloween Ornament Centerpiece
Margot Potter for iLoveToCreate Teen Crafts
Copyright Margot Potter 2009
Mom Crafted-Kid Approved

My daughter has officially stopped trick or treating this year, so instead one of her friends is throwing a Halloween bash. That got me thinking about teen friendly party décor. I’ve been working on some retro style Christmas ornaments using Styrofoam, sequin and ribbon for an upcoming taping, so doing a Halloween version wasn’t a stretch. This is a fun and easy project and the potential variations are endless. Put this 8” ball in the center and add some smaller sizes wrapped in netting and other thematic ribbons and sequins and some Halloween themed confetti and you’ve got an adorable centerpiece for a teen party. You could also hang several of these on a wire from the ceiling.

Materials
8” Styrofoam sphere
Crafty Chica Little Chica Paints in black
Crafty Chica Glitter in Be Bop Black (you’re going to need TWO tubes to cover this ginormous sphere!)
Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Spray
Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue
Orange crystals (I used CRYSTALLIZED-Swarovski Elements™ 6mm Hyacinth bicones)
Off white flower sequins
Thematic ribbon (I purchased this ribbon at Michael’s last year, but all of the craft chains have fun Halloween ribbon around this time of year)
1” thick satin ribbon with loop edges
18 gauge Colourcraft wire
2" silver plated head pins

Tools
Wooden dowel or paintbrush handle
Paintbrush

1. Begin by painting your sphere. I inserted a paint brush handle into my sphere so I could hold it while painting. Styrofoam sucks up a LOT of paint, so you may need two containers to cover an 8” sphere. Allow to dry.
2. Spray sections of the sphere with Spray glue and pour glitter over them on to a newspaper or non-stick craft sheet. Keep refilling glitter container as you work. You will need two tubes of glitter to cover an 8” sphere. When finished, tap off excess glitter and allow to dry overnight.
3. Use your paint brush handle to shove one end of a pre-glued ribbon into your original indentation. I used a thick smearing of Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue along the entire length of ribbon.

4. Measure and mark an indent in the opposite side of sphere and repeat. Mark equal placement for four ribbon sections, using your paint brush handle to insert them into the indentations. There should be glue on the ends so they dry inserted in the indentations.

5. Insert a crystal and a sequin on a headpin and dab the exposed end of your headpin with Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue. Insert this into an open section of your sphere. Repeat filling each section with sequin and crystal accents. Try to evenly space your embellishments. (I started with just crystals, but we decided the sequins added so much to the design, so we did a redo!) Allow to dry.

6. Create a bow using the thick looped ribbon.

7. Insert a 5” section of Colourcraft wire bent into a ‘u’ shape threaded through the knot of your bow into the top of the sphere as in photo. Allow to dry.(Disclosure of Payment and Samples Links: http://cmp.ly/2 http://cmp.ly/3)