After seeing the prices online for a spooky chandelier, I decided that I would make my own. I want to hang the chandelier from the middle rafter of my barn for my daughter’s Halloween party. I think it will make a nice centerpiece for the room and will not injure anyone if it falls and will not catch the barn on fire. Two huge bonuses in my opinion.

First, I looked around the internet to get some ideas about chandelier shapes. I knew I needed something simple because I had to draw it and cut it out four times. No intricate baroque designs here. After filling my head with various ideas, I drew one “arm” of the chandelier onto white wrapping paper. I cut out my design and used it as the first stencil (Fig.1). I made some of my joining points too skinny so I had to go back and make those areas fatter for stability sake, so just be careful.

After tracing the design onto the foam board, I started cutting it out with my utility knife. I cut, I said some words I shouldn’t have, and then I cut some more. I was disgusted by the time I finished just one of the arms and decided that this project would never see the light of blogging day. However, my own personal knight in a t-shirt came to my craft room to see what all the fuss was about. He quickly ran away and returned with his RotoZip tool to my rescue, yet again (Fig.2). If you remember, this tool, that I am quickly becoming a huge fan of, helped hang the peg board in my craft room. He quickly cut out the shape and then used the empty shell to slip over and trace the design again (Fig.3). I can’t tell you how much easier that power tool made this project and not just because my husband was being nice and finishing the cutting for me. It probably took him less than ten minutes to cut everything out.

Using the tool leaves you with a very rough edge (and a mess of foam dust everywhere) but the roughness just adds to the creepy, aged look of it in the end. Now that I had all of my pieces, I was ready to assemble. I used black duct tape to attach the first two pieces together while they were flat on the table (Fig.4). Next, you need to stand the arm up at a 90 degree angle along the seam line and tape that piece to the other two (Fig.5). Finish by adding the last arm to the last side. Now, you have your basic chandelier!

To finish this off, I took the assembled chandelier outside and sprayed it down with glue and then sprinkled black glitter all over it (Fig.6). I thought about adding additional doo-dads and sparklies but decided against it for my purposes. If you are doing this for a princess party (don’t use black to start with of course), I would add all the “bling” and feathers you can find! Once I hang the chandelier in the barn, I will finish it off with some fake cobwebs (or real) and some spiders (definitely fake). I will post pictures of it hanging in the party space after the event.