Dollar Store Skull Decoration

3 Materials
$25
1 Hour
Easy

I am not doing a lot of Halloween decorating this year, as I don’t imagine we will be having trick or treaters. I did want to do a little something that I can take up to my granddaughters. This is a quick and easy project, made with Dollar Tree Skulls. I would love to have you stop by my blog , Celebrate & Decorate for more details as well as sign up for my latest creations, posts, recipes, exclusives, and more...

The supplies for this are plaster of paris, a decorative urn, a piece of PVC and a pot to fit down inside the urn. 

The decorative urn is one I use for different holiday displays, so I didn’t want to set the plaster of paris right in the urn. I found this flower pot without a hole in it that fit inside my urn. Mix the plaster of paris per the instructions on the package. Generally it is 2 cups of plaster of paris to 1 cup of cold water. You really have to stir it well, making sure all of the powdery plaster of paris mix gets mixed with the water. Plaster of paris sets up hard in just about 10 minutes. 

Set a piece of 3/4″ PVC that is 5 feet long down into the wet plaster of paris. Make sure your PVC post is level and straight. You can use boards like I did above to hold the PVC straight until the plaster of paris sets. 

The pot wiggled a little, so I used some scraps of styrofoam to wedge it in securely. 

This is how the Dollar Tree skulls look, but I wanted to give them a paint job! I have used these skulls to make Halloween crafts in the past, including this  Halloween Skull Garland

I used this chalky parchment colored paint to give my skulls a bit of an upgrade. IF you are going to use this outdoors, make sure after painting that you give them a spray coat of clear sealer made for outdoors. 

See the difference after painting? 

Use a knife to cut an X in two places on each skull, opposite one another. I varied the spots where I put mine so my skulls would appear at different angles on the PVC.

Slide the skulls over the PVC pushing them all the way to the bottom, and keeping them snug against one another. The top skull will only get an X cut in the bottom of his head. I used a little bit of hot glue to secure him to the skull beneath him. 

When your skulls are all on, add some Spanish moss in between the skulls and at the base of the topiary. 

A pair of salad tossers disguised as skeleton hands from Dollar Tree were stuck down in the bottom to finish off my topiary. You can add lights to your topiary if you wish.

Here is my skull topiary hanging out with some of the plants on the patio. I will add lights and put it on the front porch in October. Stop by and see more of my craft projects at Celebrate & Decorate.

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Chloe Crabtree
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  • Mymkins Mymkins on Oct 03, 2020

    Are those hands really salad tossers or actual plastic skeleton hands? Very clever. Will look even creepier with lights! Thanks for sharing!

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  • Itsmemic Itsmemic on Oct 12, 2020

    I LOVE this ! And love skulls ! Have a PVC pipe ready for this ! Off to the dollar store right now ! I LOVE this ! Super creative !~!

  • Joni J. Joni J. on Sep 17, 2023

    I love this so much I wanted to try it! I could not find any of this at dollar store! I had to go to a couple of different places, but I got it done!!

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