No-Mess, No-Carve Jack-O’-Lantern Halloween Craft

Are you looking for a fun, cheap and easy craft activity for Halloween? You need this no-mess, no-carve jack-o’-lantern craft from BINGOBONGO Learning!

After getting a great response to our DIY Halloween Ghost Decorations post we thought that we’d introduce another cheap and easy Halloween craft activity. At our school, Step by Step Eikaiwa, we reward our students for successfully completing a unit in our curriculum with a fun activity that gives them a chance to try out their English while working through an activity, and give them a fun activity to look forward to. Pumpkin carving sounded fun, but it’s a little too messy for the classroom. This time, we are doing our no-mess, no-carve jack-o’-lantern craft activity!

As before, we decided that keeping things affordable will be helpful to anybody wanting to try this out. We got all the supplies at the local 100-yen shop (dollar store). Altogether, making these jack-o’-lanterns should take an average time of around ten to fifteen minutes.

How to Make No-Mess, No-Carve Jack-O’-Lanterns

If you’re in Japan, these items can be found at any 100-yen shop such as Daiso or Seria or ordered online. Outside of Japan your own country’s equivalent to the 100-yen shop or the dollar store will also probably have the items you need.

All you’ll need are the following materials:

A plastic jar with a plastic or thin metal lid

Some colored tapes

In our example we used a translucent orange cloth tape and solid black cloth tape. You can try using other tapes, such as duct tape, masking tape or electrical tape.

Wax baking paper

This will be used as a backing for the black tape when we cut out the details. Without this paper, the tape will stick to the scissors. The shapes you cut out will peel off easily.

An electronic tealight candle

Scissors

Colored pipe cleaners

Something to make a hole in the lid

An awl, small screwdriver or knifetip will be fine.

Step 1

Make a small hole in the top of the lid with a pointed tool. Use a pipe cleaner of appropriate length and push the pipe cleaner through the hole and twist the ends together. You can use tape to hold the pipe cleaner in place more firmly.

Step 2

Wrap the jar with the orange tape. Take your time to avoid making wrinkles.

Step 3

Put the black tape flat onto the wax paper. The tape should stick loosely but still be easy to peel off. Draw any shapes that you would like to cut out such as eyes, a mouth, a nose or anything else! You can make your jack-o’-lantern look however you like!

Step 4

Cut out your shapes made from the black tape. Peel them off from the wax paper backing and apply them over the orange tape.

Step 5

When you’re happy with the design, you can switch on the electronic tealight and put it inside the jar. Turn off the lights and… BOO! You’ve finished your cute and spooky kid’s Halloween craft activity! It’s ready to take home.

Now it’s Your Turn to Make No-Mess, No-Carve Jack-O’-Lanterns!

As you can see, you can make any design you’d like! You could also try making a scary white ghost lantern, or a little green alien lantern just by using some different tape! If you still want more kids’ Halloween craft activities, how about trying the DIY Light Ghost Decorations?

We have a lot of other Halloween materials for teachers or parents looking for fun ideas. We have a whole list of ideas for a great Halloween parties and classes. We also have Halloween songs, a free Halloween quiz, and free Halloween flashcards. We hope our resources can help you have a Happy Halloween!