Jack o’ lantern lollipop prop
Published by Manning on October 12th, 2018
I made this big jack o’ lantern lollipop decoration (the one on the right, duh) for my Halloween party in 2018. It was easy!
I started by drawing the shape of the jack o’ lantern on a piece of foam board and cutting it out with an X-acto knife. I then traced and cut out two more copies, for three total.
I took one of the pumpkin shapes and sketched a bunch of shapes to cut out to create the 3d relief effect for the jack o’ lantern’s face. The idea here is to give me wide lines to cut out so that they create deep grooves in the pumpkin’s face that I can later cover with paper maché.
I cut these pieces apart with an X-acto blade and glued them in place on another one of the pumpkin shapes with some little drops of Tacky Glue.
I cut some strips of foam board and bent and taped them into little triangle shapes, and taped them onto the remaining foam board pumpkin shape. These will serve as little supports to separate the front and back of the lollipop.
I laid the front panel in place on the supports and used a few pieces of masking tape to hold all this stuff together.
I cut long strips of construction paper and taped them around the edges of the jack o’ lantern shape to create a sort of wall all the way around (not shown, but use your imagination).
I then covered the entire lollipop base with two layers of paper maché. You can read about my paper maché process and materials here. The short version is: I use Roman PRO-543 universal wallpaper adhesive (paid link) and alternating layers of newspaper and brown wrapping paper.
I made the stick for the lollipop out of some rolled up paper, which I taped closed and stuffed with newspaper to give it some solidity. I covered the stick with three layers of paper maché.
I assembled the jack o’ lantern and stick with some masking tape, and then I covered the connection point with about five layers of paper maché.
Painting
When all that was dry, I spray painted the whole lollipop with a light gray primer color, let that set for a couple hours, and then I protected the stick with newspaper and masking tape and spray painted the jack o’ lantern part orange. Here it is drying along with some other candies.
I let the spray paint set, and then I used acrylic paint and a brush to do the eyes, nose, and mouth, and the stem/leaves. All done! Here it is drying along with my spiral lollipop prop. On to the next project!
About Manning Krull
How to make a 4-foot paper maché alligator
My violin skull mask, Mardi Gras 2015
Three-headed paper maché dragon sculpture
Leave a comment