Homemade Glowing or Non-glowing Skull Decorations for Halloween

After finishing up my 'Flamethrower Snowman and friend" Christmas project, I had an idea for my scrap OSB since Halloween was on its way.

Skulls! I first did white skulls and thought they turned out really well. Made another batch and decided too spray on some glow paint. On average these are about nine inches tall, some shorter or longer.

• Scrap piece of OSB
• self made / printed skull stencil
• marker or pencil
• Band or jig-saw
• Hand sander
• White paint or any color you'd like the skull
• Black paint
• glow-in-the-dark paint
• brushes
• clear coat

Find a skull photo you like online or draw one out yourself, cut it out along with the eyes and nose.

Lay down your scrap board, throw down the stencil and get tracing. I normally use a black marker when doing this. You can just trace the outside but I always fill in the eyes and nose for some reason. I like grouping them close as I can so there's less waste.

After you're happy with your tracing and what not, head over to your saw. I used a bandsaw I got from my grandfather, pretty sure its older than my Dad. You can just cut out the basic shape of the skulls or get more precise with them. Either way you'll hit them with a sander so you can shape them even more.

Pretty self explanatory here, sand both sides down, rounding and smoothing the sides of the skulls as well.

Pic a well ventilated area if you're using spray paint. Place the skulls down on a surface you don't care if paint gets on. I had a lot of cardboard boxes(thanks Amazon) so that's what I used. I ended up doing two coats of the white paint. After the paint is dry, hit them with the Glow paint, probably two coats as well.

Once everything is dry, either place the stencil on the skull and trace the eyes/nose or freehand it. Outline/blackout some teeth, some cracks, whatever floats your boat. Once you're happy with your artistic decisions, go over it with the black paint. The size and type of paint brushes all depend on what you're going for. Instead of paint you could use a sharpie, they have different tips so that's helpful. After that, clear coat them a few times including the back.

Looking back on this project I thought of a couple things.

• Gluing felt on the back, either fully covering it or just some small pieces. Then the skulls could be used as a coaster.
• attaching some sort of hanger on the back.
• If they go outside or near water, do a couple more coats of the clear coat.