Halloween is just around the corner; do you have your decorations already? Here’s a chance to recycle those baby food jars you couldn’t let go of. An easy to make halloween decoration idea you and your kids can make at home: Spooky specimen jars! This project is made with kid-friendly (mostly food) materials.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Empty baby food jars in different sizes
• Cotton balls
• Scissors
• Different flavors of powdered drink
• Coffee
• Instant ramen noodles
• Gummy candies
• Label stickers
• Masking tape
• Creepy halloween toys such as bugs, critters, body parts and skeletons

Steps to make spooky halloween specimen jars:

1.       Remove the labels of the baby food jars. Each jar must have its own lid because you’ll be bottling ‘specimens’ in liquid.

2.       Trace the round bottle covers on the label stickers and cut them up for later use.

3.       Place the candies and creepy toys in the jars. Worms, eyes, aliens, animals and other halloween shapes work best. You can buy an assortment of these from the dollar store. Use one bottle for every type of specimen. You can draw additional details like black pupils on white balls to make eyeballs.

4.       Fill up the center portion of the jar with cotton balls to prevent the specimens from moving around.

5.       Soak the ramen noodles in red instant drink on a small bowl. You can use Crystal Light On The Go in Tropical Punch for this because it has a rich red color.

6.       While waiting for the ramen noodles to soften, grab a different colored mix drink and prepare it in a glass. Pour the mixture in a specimen jar you prepared earlier. Try to use a different color/flavor for every jar to create variety. Some coffee or food coloring will also work.

7.       Partly drain the softened noodles and transfer them into a new jar. The noodles should be pinkish from being soaked in red drink.

8.       Cover the specimen jars and wrap the lid sides with masking tape to hide any writings. You can add some other materials to make them look ancient.

9.       Write down spooky details on the label stickers and stick them on the lids. Use weird or fictitious creatures such as flying vampire fangs or genius goblin brain. Put additional information like collection date, experiment number and other interesting made-up facts.

Your specimen bottle jars are now ready to display. They’ll look great stacked together as a table centerpiece or sitting on the windowsill for the trick-or-treaters to see. Toy specimens last for weeks while candy specimens only last a couple of days.