Mr. Bones – Our Milk Jug Skeleton

I was taking Daphne for a walk a couple of weeks ago and noticed a cool Halloween skeleton hanging from a neighbor’s porch.  The skeleton was made from translucent gallon milk jugs.  The next day I Googled “milk jug skeleton” and found a few different sites that had instructions and/or photos showing how to create one.  I was actually hoping for a pattern or template that I could trace on the milk jugs, but couldn’t find one that would make it that easy.  I printed off a few pictures and a couple of sets of instructions, sent out an email to co-workers begging for them to save their milk jugs and hoped that I could collect enough to make the skeleton.

I receive one milk jug from a co-worker the next day and our Chef at work had four more.  Sophia and I made plans to start our skeleton when the boys went to the Friday night hockey game.

We cut out most of the pieces that evening.  Head, chest, pelvis, leg bones and arm bones.  Our hands were sore from cutting, so we hung up our scissors for the night.

We didn’t have time during the week to finish, so we left the pieces on the dining room table.  It was a bit creepy having his skull laying there.  Finally on Friday night, two days before Halloween, we cut out the remaining pieces.  Sebastian was at a sleepover, but I was able to convince Mike (and Sophia) to help put him together.  We used a hole punch to cut a hole in each piece and tied the bones together with fishing line.

We had a great time making Mr. Bones and will be able to use him again next year when we decorate for Halloween.  Now we just need to find a place to store him.  I think we may “hang” him from the ceiling in our storage room…or maybe we should find a box and tuck him away until next year.