Step-by-Step Witch Decoration Out of Recyclable Materials

Halloween is hands down my favorite holiday. I think that I get more excited then my kids. I start planning months in advance crafts I can do with my kids, what I will be for Halloween (my costume is always handmade) and the fun treats that I can cook up.

If you want to do a Halloween craft with your kids this year, consider making your own witch. This article will give you step by step directions on how to make your own soda bottle witch and best of all, you probably already have most of the items needed to do it.

What you need:

1 empty green soda bottle (label removed)

Sand or dirt from your yard

Piece of cardboard

Black construction paper

Mop top

Black Food Coloring (Optional)

Old striped sock (think tube style)

Sticks

Black button

2 pennies

Handful of smaller white buttons

Scissors

Hot glue gun with glue sticks

Glue Stick or Elmer's Glue

Putting it together:

The first thing that you need to do is prepare your soda bottle. Remove the label, make sure no soda remains in the bottle, rinse it out with water and let dry. Once it's dry, fill it with sand, dirt, rocks from your yard or even clean cat litter. You want it to stay in place and not fall over when you use it as your decoration. Put the lid back on.

Now take your stripped tube sock. This is the witches outfit. Cut off the toe area. Stretch out the sock and pull it down over your soda bottle. You want the top of the sock to be the top of the witches outfit. Make sure that the end of the sock touches the end a bit then trim off any unneeded parts. Make sure that the top half of the soda bottle is not covered.

The next step is to use your glue gun and glue two pennies (I recommend the back side of the penny) for the eyes. Now use your black button for the nose. Last, glue the white buttons for the mouth in either a frown or a smile.

Take the end of your mop and snip off pieces for the hair. You'll want lots of hair so make sure you cut enough. You can either leave the mop grey but if you want black witch hair, soak in black food coloring and let dry. At the mouth of the soda bottle, carefully glue the hair. Make sure you do not glue any mop hair on the top of the lid.

For the hat, you'll want a sturdy base so cut a piece of cardboard in a small circle shape for your witches' hat. Now take the black construction paper and cut two circles the same shape of your cardboard cut out. Use your regular glue to glue the circles on each side of the cardboard. Now take a piece of the construction paper, cut it down and roll it in a cone shape. Glue the slides with regular glue so it will retain its cone shape. Use hot glue to attach it to the circle piece. Now use hot glue in the very middle of the witch hat so that you can place it down on top of the soda lid. Voila! Your witch has her hat.

Now you'll want to take two of your sticks and have them be the same length. Take your scissors and cut two small holes onto each side of the soda bottle where the witch arms would go. Be careful as you will have to cut a bit through your sock. Put the sticks in and use a little glue on the outside to make sure that they will stay in place.

The last step is to make your witch broom. You'll want a longer stick that will touch the ground from your witches stick arm. Cut some pieces of your straw broom and tie or glue it onto the ends of the broom. Now carefully glue the top piece of the stick to your witch hand and you have an instant Halloween decoration that you've made from items out of your home.