DIY Day Of The Dead Planters

Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday that takes place the day after Halloween, November 1^st, and one of the most recognizable symbols of the holiday is the sugar skull.  Traditionally made of sugar, these colorfully decorated skulls would be used to adorn alters made in remembrance of deceased friends and family or left as gifts to those still living in celebration of the holiday.  I think it’s a really cool tradition, and I’ve always just loved the look of the sugar skulls with their contradictory, almost cheerful look. They also make great decorations this time of year, and I was inspired by these to paint planters and pumpkins to look like sugar skulls!

What you need: small terracotta pots, white, black, and various shades of acrylic paint, paintbrushes and a black sharpie.

Paint the terracotta pots with white paint – I used acrylic paint and I liked how it looked after just one coat, but if you want to have a more solid white appearance feel free to add a second coat.

I used black acrylic paint to add the eyes and nose and a sharpie to draw the teeth.  If you want to draw out the face with pencil first to be safe you can.

Now you can add some color and embellishments to your sugar skulls! I searched for sugar skulls online for inspiration for my designs.

These make an adorable table top decoration and right now they are making my desk space very happy! I set out to do the same thing with the pumpkin but I kinda loved how it looked with just the skeleton face. :)

More DIY projects from the BLDG 25 Blog.

Photos by Julia.