Oct
13

Halloween Paper Bag Luminaries

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

This post contains affiliate links – click here to read my full disclosure.

It’s been almost 11 months since we moved into our house…so this is our first Halloween with a “real house” and, from what we hear, LOTS of trick-or-treaters!  I’ve decorated our front porch for fall with “pretty” decorations (mums in pretty planters, a straw bale, a wooden crate, our glitter monogrammed pumpkin, plus and a few other pumpkins) but I’m not usually one to go all-out with spooky Halloween decor.  (Though that reminds me, I do have our Ping Pong Ball Ghost Lights to put out!)

 

So, in searching for some simple and inexpensive decor for Trick-or-Treat night, I decided to try make some quick and easy Halloween Paper Bag Luminaries with my Silhouette.  Don’t you remember making these when you were little – cutting pumpkin faces out of a paper bag, filling the bottom with sand, and putting some tea lights inside?  It’s just like that…only a little bit fancier, because, well, we can :-)

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

I picked up these white paper bags from Michael’s and then experimented a bit to find a technique that would give the best ratio of quick & easy to best final product, and came up with a few different methods for making luminaries with your Silhouette.

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

The first way I tried ended up being the winner – cut a silhouette of a Halloween shape from white card stock.  The trick is to make sure the shape is all connected, so you don’t have extra little pieces to be attaching separately.  I found three shapes in the Silhouette Store that worked really well for this – a witch, cat, and haunted house.  A simple “release compound path” in Silhouette Studio allowed me to delete the outside border so I was left with a silhouette that would cut all in one piece.  Then I added a rectangle the same size as the front of my paper bag, horizontally centered the shape inside of it, and cut out of plain white card stock.

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

Then I just used a gluestick to glue the FRONT of the design to the inside of my paper bag.  (Do you know the magazine glue stick trick?  Use an old magazine as background scrap paper when you’re gluing…then simply turn the page when you’re done with that shape so you’re not setting your next shape down in half-dried glue!  Life changing, I know!)

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

I did try a few other techniques to cut the bag directly with mixed results.  Laying your paper bag on the mat and cutting it directly DOES in fact work on the regular card stock cut settings (cutting through both sides), especially with basic shapes.  But you’ve got to fold the edges of the bag outward so that the cut goes through the front and back of the bag. The issue becomes getting your design perfectly centered on the bag…the PixScan mat worked well for that, though it was a bit time consuming with the extra bag folding, picture taking, importing the photo into the software, and placing the design – all that just for ONE bag.  In that time, I could have made 2 or 3 of the other bags.  (I used this technique on the bat bag, below.)  The other method I tried was “dissecting” the paper bag to be completely flat by cutting down one long side and around 3 sides of the bottom, then placing it on the mat to cut, and reassembling with scotch tape.  That way the design only cut through one side of the bag.  (That’s how I did the spider web bag, below.)  But again, lots of extra steps for essentially the same result.

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

 

I also tried a few more complicated designs in reverse silhouette that involved gluing extra little pieces inside the bag (see all those little window pieces in the big haunted house?), and it definitely wasn’t worth the extra effort compared to the other haunted house shape I found.

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

Even though all the bags ended up looking great (and of course, I’ll be using them all!), the simplest method was definitely the winner!  I stuck some battery operated tea lights in them, and they look terrific on the front porch and sidewalk.  You could whip up a few of these for your own porch in just a few minutes!

 

Make glowing Halloween paper bag luminaries with your Silhouette in less than 10 minutes - great front porch decor for Trick or Treat night!

 

Want some more great Silhouette Inspiration?

It’s Silhouette Challenge Day!  That means a bunch of other fabulous fall Silhouette projects on display by 24 other bloggers today…click on the images below or scroll down to the blog names to browse through them all!

Paper Rosette Fall Wreath Hello Fall Sign Halloween Paper Bag Luminaries Spooky Mantle Ghost Town Dollar Store Placemat Jack O' Lantern Copper and Paper Embellished Pumpkins Ugly Sweater Wineglass Charms DIY Fall Leave Paper Wreath Starry Pumpkin Burlap & BOO Halloween Wreath Fall Paper Petals Fall Leaves Favor Tags 15 Minute Customized Halloween Buckets Gravestone Treat Bags with Free Cut File Beware of Zombies Halloween Shadow Box Welcome Sign Vampire Bat Specimen Boo-tiful Halloween Treats Little Turkey No Sew Thanksgiving Onesie Frozen Halloween Treats & Free Printable Fall Leaf Keychain Fall Lovin October Silhouette Challenge Punny #Hashtag Halloween Costume Still Falling For You Card DIY Etched Leaf Coasters

1. Create & Babble // 2. Lil Mrs. Tori // 3. unOriginal Mom // 4. Zanaree // 5. The Kim Six Fix // 6. One Dog Woof // 7. Cupcakes & Crowbars // 8. Living My Given Life // 9. Architecture of a Mom // 10. Put A Bird On It // 11. Just Add Paper // 12. Weekend Craft // 13. Silhouette School // 14. Minted Strawberry // 15. My Paper Craze // 16. McCall Manor // 17. Chicken Scratch NY // 18. Mama Sonshine // 19. Creative Ramblings // 20. From Wine to Whine // 21. Please Excuse My Craftermath… // 22. Dragonfly & Lily Pads // 23. The Thinking Closet // 24. Simply Kelly Designs // 25. Sandpaper & Glue //

 

Do you have any favorite quick & easy ideas to decorate for Trick-or-Treaters on Halloween?

 

This post contains affiliate links – click here to read my full disclosure.

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65 Responses to Halloween Paper Bag Luminaries

  30. OK. This? Genius. I especially love how you experimented with different techniques to see what worked best. I can’t believe that you were able to get it to cut through both layers without it sliding around. Great project!!

    Reply

  36. These look awesome! I am wanting to make a bunch of these to line my driveway but I am kind of lost on how you did it. Ive tried reading the instructions a few times and still cant quote figure it out. Where do you fing the shapes? Did you buy those shapes already precut? If so, what did you use to make the cuts so perfect? Did you find a shape and then trace it onto white card stock and make ths cuts and then paste the card stock directly on the paper bag? Im lost and I hope to hear back from you soon through email. Thanks!

    Reply

    • Hi Rachel! I used my Silhouette Portrait to cut the shapes, so the post and tutorial is all about how to make luminaries using a Silhouette. I’m sorry that was confusing! you could try a similar technique by printing our Halloween shapes on card stock and cutting them with a exacto knife…I’m sure you could find some free clip art images that would work! Hope that is helpful!

      Reply

    • I used battery operated tea lights that had an orange cast to the light…when you put them in the dark, they really have a neat yellow-orange glow to them!

      Reply

  49. These Halloween Paper Bag Luminaries sound like such a fun and nostalgic DIY project! Using your Silhouette to create intricate designs is a brilliant idea. I love how you experimented to find the best technique, and the results must look fantastic with the tea lights glowing inside. Your porch decorations sound lovely too – it’s great to hear about your first Halloween in your new house!

    Reply

  53. These Halloween paper bag luminaries look so cozy and creative. I really like the haunted house and witch designs. Perfect idea for trick-or-treat night!

    Reply

  58. It is frustrating to see an invalid SSL certificate error like this, especially since I manage a tech-focused blog on Sprinki Sbrunga where site security is a top priority. I hope the owner resolves the expiration issue soon so visitors don’t get blocked.

    Reply

  59. Such a creative and budget-friendly Halloween craft idea! The step-by-step instructions and practical tips make these paper bag luminaries easy for anyone to create. I truly enjoyed this inspiring post. Even while checking lotería nacional, I found this DIY project fun and worth trying.

    Reply

  60. That 526 SSL certificate error is always a headache, but I really appreciate how clearly the page outlines the exact next steps for both visitors and site owners. Reading through these technical diagnostics is such a refreshing contrast to my usual days spent hosting playful Chinese and Mayan gender prediction games over at Sophia Watson. It’s honestly a nice mental break to switch between troubleshooting server issues and planning lighthearted baby shower activities.

    Reply

  62. I really love how you compared the different Silhouette cutting techniques here, especially the PixScan mat method versus just flattening the bag to cut directly. It’s such a smart breakdown for anyone trying to decide which workflow saves the most time on a project like this. Even though my usual focus is running Sarah, a viral online memory game where players race against the clock to list 100 real, notable women from various fields and eras, I still love keeping my hands busy with quick seasonal crafts. Your tip about sticking with battery-operated tea lights to avoid soot on the porch was a lifesaver, and I’m definitely going to try the card stock silhouette method on some plain bags this weekend. Thanks for the clear step-by-step visuals!

    Reply

  63. I love how simple yet creative these Halloween paper bag luminaries are! They’re an affordable way to make any porch look festive and welcoming for trick-or-treaters. Thanks for sharing such an easy-to-follow DIY idea! You can also learn about precision surgical instruments like Mayo Scissors.

    Reply

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stay-at-home mom to three beautiful children, wife to an incredible husband, and daughter of a loving God. I freely admit that I am not always the most creative or original person when it comes to crafting, decorating, organizing, cooking, etc...but I love being inspired by great ideas and putting my own spin on them! Look around, stay a while, and I hope through my *unoriginality* I can provide some inspiration to you, too!
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