Halloween Haunted House Candy Dish

Serve candy for Halloween in this distinctively spooky container. The haunted house is made using waste paper and boxes and some paint and the prepared foam cups are glued around to hold varieties of candy.

Materials

1. Two empty boxes for the house
2. Cardboard square for the base
3. Piece of cardboard for the roof
4. Old newspaper or waste paper for the ‘hill’
5. Tissue paper roll (toilet tissues work well)
6. Paints – poster colors or acrylic – Black and Moss Green
7. Dried twig
8. Yellow paper scraps for doors and windows
9. Craft Glue, PVA glue
10. ‘Glow in the Dark’ Styrofoam Cups (click for instructions)

How to:

1. The first step is to create the hill with the house on top of it. To create the hill, crinkle into balls waste paper and use glue and lots of tape to secure it to the cardboard base. When done, glue and tape two boxes of unequal heights but similar width as shown. Fold a piece of cardboard and glue on top of the taller box to create the roof.

2. One your ‘skeleton’ is ready, thin craft glue with water in a bowl and using a brush, start gluing strips of tissue paper all over the house, hill and the base. When the house is entirely covered with white tissue paper, let dry and repeat the process.

3. When completely dry and all white, start painting your house with black paint. This is how it will look after the first coat.

4. After the first coat dries, apply another coat and fill in all gaps.

5. Now, using moss green or similar colored paint, start painting the ‘hill’. The uneven tissue paper cover will let the black paint show through. Do not try to fill in the gaps. This is the effect we want.

6. Complete the house by gluing yellow paper scraps to make the house and windows and adding a black painted twig to one side of the house by oushing it inside the watse paper ‘hill’ and then gluing and taping it secure.

7. If you just want to create a haunted house decoration or centerpiece, stop right here. If you wish to make a candy container, make 4 ‘Glow in the Dark’ cups as shown in our other tutorial and glue their bases around the hill as shown. Use cups to store different types of candy after first lining them with colorful food-safe tissue paper or cellophane.