DLTK's Crafts for Kids:
Jack-O'Lantern Votive Candle Holder Craft

My oldest daughter has recently started Sparks (part of the Girl Guides of Canada movement).  One of the first crafts she brought home was this one.  Make sure you talk about fire safety and safety with matches when you make this craft!
 

Materials:

• one small baby food jar, cleaned with label removed.  The lid is not needed.
• orange tissue paper or paper napkins 
• mod podge or white glue.
   
• a votive candle or tealight candle (tea lights are less likely to break the jar)
• paint brush, cue tip or popsicle stick
   

Instructions:

• If using white glue you will need to thin it; mix 1/2 glue and 1/2 water in a container (like a margine container).
   
• If using paper napkins, separate the plies.
   
• Rip tissue paper or napkins into pieces about 1 inch by 1 inch.  It is good if the pieces are jagged.  Ripping the tissue paper is good motor control practice for the kids (and is a lot harder than it looks for some!).
   
• Using your paint brush, cue tip or popsicle stick, paint the baby food jar with the mod podge or thinned glue.  Only paint the main jar area (not the part where you would screw the top on -- we don't want any paper to catch fire).
   
• Paste tissue paper all over the jar.  Feel free to overlap pieces.
   
• Paint more glue over the top of any pieces that look a bit loose.
   
• Let dry.
   
• Cut out a jack-o-lantern face from black construction paper or from white paper and colour it in.
   
• When AN ADULT lights the candle, it will shine very prettily through the tissue paper.  Make sure you keep it somewhere out of reach of young kids.

June wrote:
"My Sunday School class will be making the "Jack-O'Lantern Votive Candle Holder Craft--with a big change--as we are so concerned about fire we can no longer make anything with candles, etc. So we will be making these like you did--but I'll be filling them with Halloween candy they can take home and share with their parents and friends. Also, we'll be putting ripped green paper around the sides and tops of the baby food cover to look like a stem. I will be making out labels with a Bible saying on it for kids to put on back of pumpkin jar. I'm sure that my kids will love this idea."

Printable version of these instructions