Skeleton Dish DIY

How's this for some fun Halloween DIY decor?  Get thee to the Dollar Store and make one yourself!

You'll need a plastic skeleton with joints you can take apart.  (Mine didn't actually come from the dollar store, but right after I bought it I saw some there that were similar.)  You also need a glass taper candle holder and a glass tealight holder.

Take the skeleton apart, and lay it out in a pattern you like on top of the dish.  Glue all that down with a strong adhesive (I like E6000).  I had to use a toothpick to get into some of the crevices to make sure everything would stick.

Put a line of glue around the top of the taper holder and glue the dish to it.  You can look down into the dish to help line it up.

This needs to get really dry.  You don't want this thing falling apart on you.  I let it dry for 48 hours.

Then I gave the whole thing a coat of cheap white spray paint to prime it.  Let that dry, then blast it with a coat of silver spray paint.  (I used Rust-oleum Bright Metallics.)  Let that dry fully.

With black acrylic, paint over the entire surface, working in a small area at a time.  Be sure to get into the cracks and spots where anything touches something else.  Then just take a paper towel or old rag and wipe it off before moving to the next section.  I almost skipped this step, but it gave it so much more dimension and realism, I'm glad I did it.  Do this over the entire thing, and let it dry.  Shouldn't take long.

I didn't add a sealer here.  Sealers tend to dull down metallic paints, and I figured it's not going to be handled all that much and would be fine.

Now it's ready to use to hold little trinkets like these spider rings, or you could fill it with dry black beans like I did and put in a tealight candle.  You'll notice I jazzed up my candle with a little flame washi tape, just for fun and contrast.

Give it a try, and enjoy!

I'm sharing this project at Halloween Spooktacular Linky Party @ Made in a Day