You can make easy silhouetted window covers to add something extra to your own home during the Halloween season. What could be scarier for trick-o-treaters than walking up to your house and seeing the shadow of a witch, a black cat or hanged man glowing softly through your windows? They are simple to make and can be added to every window in your house!
What You'll Need:
White Flat Sheets or Material
Black Acrylic Paint (Premixed or Powdered)
Black Marker
Straight Pins
Butcher's Paper, Brown Paper or Poster Paper
Painting Sponge or Brush
Thumbtacks
First, measure the windows that you want to cover. Add four inches to the height and width measurements to allow for tacking up. You can either buy white cotton/polyester material or inexpensive white flat bed sheets. If you plan on doing many windows, you may want to go with inexpensive flat sheets. They come in many sizes and can be found at mass retailers for a small price.
Depending on the size of the silhouette, measure your brown paper. You'll probably need to tape two length side by side for the correct size. Draw the silhouette that you desire into the paper and cut out. Pin the silhouette to the white material. Draw around the paper with the black marker and remove the paper. You should now have an outline of your silhouette on the material.
You'll
need a large amount of black paint to paint
in your silhouette, so either buy two or
three large bottles of black acrylic paint
or get powdered acrylic and mix a large
batch. The disadvantage with powdered paint
is that when it dries, it may crack and fall
off. Using a brush or sponge brush, paint
the silhouette in with black paint. Let dry
completely. You may need to use two coats.
When the silhouette is dry,
you can hang it in a few different ways. Hem
a small space at the top and run a spring
rod through it and put it in the window
frame. If you do this, add an extra eight
inches to the length measurement to allow
for a four inch pocket. You can also use
thumb tacks if you aren't worried about
making holes in the window frame. If you can
find a good, strong double adhesive tape,
you can also tape it to the window frame.
There you have it! We've
done some hanged man silhouettes for our front windows
and they look great with a low light behind them. We
also did a large black cat with bats flying around it,
the cat was painted so it looked like it was standing on
the window sill. If you can't draw, you can always find
a graphic that you'd like to use, change the color of
the object to black using a paint program, print it out
and take it to a local office supply store that can blow
it up and make a copy of it for you.
If you can not find rolls
of brown butcher's paper, you can also use poster paper
taped together or large sheets of sketching paper taped
together.
Using spring loaded
curtain rods makes putting these up very easy. Simply
measure the inside width of your window and head off to
your local mass retailer where you'll find them in the
curtain department. They are inexpensive and can be used
year after year. make sure and add enough in inches to
the length measurement of the material so you can sew an
open pocket to run the rod through!
Have fun with this and let your
imagination be your guide!
