How To Make A Frightening Jack O' Lantern Out Of Paper-Mache

It’s really close to pumpkin time! Who doesn’t love scary Halloween decorations? Now is the perfect time to make a frightening Jack-O’-Lantern!

At the end of summer, my thoughts always return to Halloween, costumes, and paper mache pumpkins…

How To Make Frightening Jack-O'-Lanterns Out Of Paper-Mache — Papier Mache Pumpkins.

This pumpkin is from 2019. It may be my favorite thus far.

This year, I decided to create a completely different pumpkin shape. This required two plastic bags – a larger bag and a slightly smaller bag.

When I first began making paper-mache clay, I made a large quantity. You can find the original post and that recipe here ► Papier-mâché Pumpkins. If you are making a huge pumpkin, you will want to use that recipe. You need to keep the leftover clay in a cool place or mold can begin to grow on it. Yuk!

Since I tend to make smaller pumpkins, it’s easier to stir the mixture by hand and keep the mixture fresher by quartering the recipe. Then, it’s easy to make up more as needed.

Quartered Papier-mâché Clay Recipe

Ingredients

4 cups flour
1/4 cup white Elmer’s Glue-All
* 1/4 cup liquid starch
1 cap of Mr. Clean
1-quart water
** Cellulose fiber insulation
1/2 cup Drywall joint compound

* Don’t have liquid starch?  You can easily make your own.  You’ll need water and dry laundry starch or even regular cornstarch.  

Boil 1/4 cup of water in a saucepan.

Mix 1 teaspoon of laundry starch or cornstarch in 1 teaspoon of cold water.  Stir cornstarch mixture into the boiling water.  Continue boiling and stirring for about 1 minute.  Remove from the heat and allow it to cool before using to make the papier-mâché paste.

** You can find cellulose fiber insulation at your local big-box store, like Lowe's or Home Depot.  It comes in bales.  It's relatively inexpensive and will make a whole lot of this clay!

Directions

Pour the flour into a 1-gallon bucket. Add 1/4 cup of white glue, 1/4 cup of liquid starch, 1 cap of Mr. Clean, 1 quart of water, drywall joint compound, and mix well. (Mr. Clean keeps the mixture smelling a little fresher for a few days.)

When I made a large amount of clay, we used a drill and paint mixing paddle. That is not necessary if you are making this smaller amount. I hand-stirred this with a large metal spoon in an empty plastic 1.25-gallon ice cream container. It is easy enough to do.

Add a handful of the cellulose fiber insulation and mix well. Continue adding and mixing until you have a clay the consistency of a soft Play-Doh. The first time I made the clay, I didn’t add enough of the dry insulation, and it was too wet. It didn’t retain the shape as well after it dried. After realizing this, by adding more of the insulation, I finally got the feel for the best consistency. You can read more about my experience here. ►Papier-mache pumpkin.

Papier-mâché Jack O’ Lantern

Supplies Needed:

Newspaper
Plastic grocery bag and produce bag
Twine
Masking tape
Papier-mache clay
Elmer’s Glue-All or Regular White Glue

Papier-mâché Jack O’ Lantern Directions

First, find two plastic bags, one smaller than the first. Then, fill both plastic grocery bags with crumpled newspapers. Tie a knot at the top of each.

Shape into a pumpkin likeness. You may have seen these made from balloons but that creates too much of a perfect shape. These bags aren’t over-stuffed either. This little fellow is going to be less ‘perfect’ and a little more twisted.

Wrap twine around the bag to create ridges resembling a pumpkin. Make sure you have the same number of ridges in each of the bags. Stack the smaller bag on top of the large bag. You’ll need to line these up next.

Line up twine on the bags

Tape the two bags together .

Cut Paper Strips and Apply to The Pumpkin Shape

Papier-mâché - Pumpkins How To Make — Easily cut lots of paper strips with a paper cutter.

Cut plenty of strips of newspaper to apply to the pumpkin shape. Using this Fiskars paper cutter, it made short work of this. This one is old. There are much better ones today. (We are an Amazon affiliate and may receive a small percentage of any sales through this link at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting our website!)

Use a criss-cross pattern and overlap each.

Use a plain paper for the last layer.

Usually, I reserve some of the paper mache mixture before adding the drywall mud, and the Cellulose fiber insulation. This time, to make it even easier, I just used regular white school glue to glue the paper strips to the plastic bags.

Use a crisscross pattern and overlap each. With a paintbrush or your hands, apply the glue, and glue at least 3 or more layers of newspaper strips over the entire pumpkin. The crisscross pattern helps make the base firmer. The firmer the base is, the more substantial the final product will be.

Tip:  It becomes a little harder to see how many layers you have as you lay the strips on top of strips.  After adding strips to the entire surface this time, I used colored newsprint for the second layer.  Then, for the third layer, I used blank newsprint.  Lots of stores use this to wrap your breakable items before placing them in a bag.  This is an easy way to keep track of how many layers you have added to your pumpkin shape.

Creating A Stem

To create a stem, twist a piece of newspaper to resemble a stem. Leave one end untwisted. Bend the twisted end back on itself and twist it together to form the stem. Cut the untwisted end into strips and glue it to the top of the pumpkin shape.

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I added some Tacky glue to the open twists in the stem and held it for a few minutes to hold the shape. Then, I wrapped some masking tape around the stem to hold it in place.

Glue strips of paper in a crisscross fashion and attach the stem securely to the pumpkin.

Create The Jack O’ Lantern Face

Draw the face you want for your Jack O’ Lantern.

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Cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth with a sharp X-Acto knife. Using a marker, trace a lid or can in the center of the bottom of the pumpkin. Cut around the circle and create a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin shape for easy removal of the newspaper and plastic bag and also for access to paint the inside later. Don’t remove the bag and newspaper yet! The bag and newspaper help support the paper frame while adding the clay.

 (Instead of continually changing out blades, I sharpened the blade with a knife sharpener a few times.)

After the completely covered pumpkin shape is dry, use the reserved papier-mâché paste to make the clay recipe above, if you haven’t already. (This recipe is half of what Scott makes up, which is one of each, the paste and clay. I just mixed up one recipe and made the clay with about 2/3 of the paste recipe.)

Apply The Papier-mâché Clay

Begin Emphasizing Your Jack O’ Lantern Facial Features

Starting at the top of the pumpkin above the face, use the papier-mâché clay to emphasize ridges between the indentations formed by the twine and tape. Cover the lower part of the stem and make ridges creating a base to look more like a stem.

The first time I made these pumpkins, I covered the stem in one sitting. Later, when I went back, the stem had drooped over. The solution to keeping your stem from drooping is to apply the clay to the base, let it dry, and then, add clay a little bit above. Repeat until the entire stem is covered creating a base.

Then, you can add clay over the dry base. Create ridges and smooth the clay out with your hands as you go. I used my fingers more than my hands.

Begin To Create the Facial Features for the Jack O’Lantern

Begin emphasizing the facial features with clay. This is where the fun and creativity begin, where the Jack O’Lantern’s personality starts to take shape. Completely cover the pumpkin with the clay, a section at a time, creating ridges and indentations to look like a pumpkin.

You can add to these ridges as you go. This clay easily attaches to the dried layers. Just smooth out the edges. Continue adding clay until you have the look you want.

At this point, I have used all of the quartered recipe of paper mache clay. To give you an idea of how far one batch will go, this fellow is 18 inches high from the base to the top of the stem. I’ll need to make another batch. We have a way to go yet!

Part 2 of this paper mache Jack O’ Lantern will follow in a few days. Sign up for the newsletter below so you don’t want to miss it!