I Made One Of Those Milk Jug Skeletons (Only I didn’t have milk jugs to begin with…)
Have you seen those cute Halloween skeleton decorations you can make yourself, completely out of empty milk containers? I have, and I’ve been wanting one for awhile. so you know where this is going.
I ended up using juice jugs and small 12 oz coke bottles. To be honest, I never buy milk by the gallon….It’s just me here, I don’t give milk to my cats, and I always prefer almond or coconut instead. Occasionally I might get the 2% in a half-gallon, but you need at least 5-6 of these for this project.
I did have to do a little research to find out how to put this thing together…But anyway: it took 2 juice jugs, which were the closest substitute I could find, and about 7-8 12-oz coke bottles and a few liter size bottles as I resorted to rummaging through my recycle bin 😁 . I keep one-liter bottles to use for my cats’ water dispensary.
If you want to try this too, and you already have a nice collection of 1-gallon milk jugs, which according to what I read, you need at least 6 to 7 total. In addition you’ll need:
an X-acto knife
a good pair of scissors (to cut precise shapes easily)
string or wire for joining skeleton bone parts
a few permanent markers to outline cutouts and add interest
I stress “permanent” markers as the other kinds will just bead up on plastic when you try to use them. Here’s all my bottles laid out as I attempted to work out the”where’s”and”what’s ” of my design.making a milk jug skeleton
I think you may be able to locate a template for all the different shapes if you do some research.
Anyway, before you attempt this, let me first say that these juice jugs were not a walk in the park to cut into. I don’t know what kind of plastic this is, but it is the kind that you have to really dig into and hope that you don’t end up producing stress cracks as a result.
The coke bottles were much easier. They’re softer as far as plastic goes and an X-acto knife doesn’t struggle to make the cut (pun intended😊)
Bottom line: 2 juice jugs. one for the head and face, and one for the ribs. I also used a 2-liter soda bottle to make the pelvis, and about 7-9 12 oz coke bottles in all to make the hands , feet, calf bones, and arm bones, a few one liter bottles(I think it had club soda) to use to make the arm and leg bones.)
OK, here is where I had more legwork than I expected (a lot of that came out of trying to figure out how to cut the coke bottles for the hands and feet, which are more three-dimensional.
Arm and leg bones, took two flat bone shapes I cut from the liter size bottles. (the 12-oz sizes weren’t quite big enough, or linear, which I needed)
I ended up quashing down the 20-oz bottles flat and cut off the bottle ends and used scissors to make snips for digits (fingers, toes)
Two 20-oz bottles when turned upside down formed the shoulders. I used a coat hanger I cut part of off and threaded it through the rib cage part for the shoulders.
The bottom of the 2 liter coke bottle I cut for the pelvis, and kind of cut a butterfly shape to look more real. After what seemed like hours and hours, and lots of fishing line and string. I had a decoration!
I do notice that milk jugs have a natural white-ish look to them that was hard to replicate here.
The end result, when all was said and done, is that my skeleton was so…transparent. I end up coloring on my skeleton’s various parts with some of my art markers, it was kinda hard to get them to show up. And I did smear on some white paint which did not end up as well.
How all the different parts look…I like how the creator used a little outlining with a marker for more detail…
Painting on plastic is not something I would encourage you to attempt. I think there may be a brand of Krylon that does work, but I digress…
I saw something to do with Day of the Dead designs on it, which I liked, but that is a different holiday altogether. Anywhere here she is…or he? LOL. He actually came alive more when hung outside because the breeze blew him around enough to remind me of my old Halloween skeleton hangup from way back when.
I think I might want to redo some things, but so far, I’m happy with it. If you’re still with me, I encourage you to just go for the milk jugs instead as the plastic they are made of is more flexible to cut into.
🎃Good luck to you and Happy Halloween!
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