Family Home Evening activity: pumpkin lanterns!

(Mom is here visiting! Fun!)

Halloween approaches apace. And our very own cut-rate Martha Stewart, aka Miss V, has been preparing for her favorite holiday since mid-July or so. She was at the dollar store with me the other day when she saw these little orange glass lanterns -- the kind that hold tealights -- with fluted sides. Instantly V saw them as crafting gems in the rough, and she knew what we were going to do on Monday night.

So today, after a quick trip to Dollar Tree to pick them up and another quick trip to Ben Franklin to score some sticky-backed black vinyl, we had a Family Home Evening crafting activity.

Here are the results:

Pumpkin lanterns!

We already had a big bag of IKEA tealights in the pantry, so we added a light to each one and then lit them with a long noodle (it's easier and less finger-burning to set fire to lengthy pasta than to try to reach down into one of these things with a short kitchen match).

L to R: Mom's lantern, Captain Midnight's lantern

L to R: my lantern, Miss V's lantern

Don't you like the way they shed sunburst rays in every direction? I'm thinking about stringing them on thin wires and hanging them outside for Halloween, assuming it isn't too windy on Halloween night.