As a fun way to get into the spirit of the season, I decided to try my hand at making apple shrunken heads. These Halloween spooky crafts don’t require a ton of prep or supplies. With most things in arts and crafts, I go into them with a lot of planning. With these it was more of using the apples like “carving doodles” and seeing what came out.
Lost Your Head
Do my stitched eyes and mouth fill you with dread?
Beware, you’re on a path where none should tread
Heedlessness will end up costing your head
Too late, you’re now half decoration, half undead
Watch DIY Apple Shrunk Heads Tutorial | Halloween Spooky Crafts
To make these shrunken heads you’ll need apples, a melon baller and/or a paring knife, parchment paper, lemon juice, and salt. You can use whatever kind of apple you want, but granny smith apples are generally recommended for the way they wrinkle when dried-out, and you’ll peel the outer skin before you begin carving.
What you’re going to do is just take your melon baller and scoop out areas that you’ll want a rounded form. And use your paring knife to cut away areas where you want a harsher edge. You can use the paring knife to cut in more angular eyes, but I’m pretty partial to the big round eyes the melon baller gives you. The melon baller is also a good option for younger children to be able to do this craft since you’d have to really go out of your way to injure yourself with it.
As you carve your heads, you’ll want to set them in enough lemon juice, with a couple of pinches of salt mixed in, to submerge them for 15-20 minutes. This mixture should reduce the chances of the apples browning and molding. Then you’ll put them in the oven and recite the magical incantation:
Croak of frog, necrotic skin
Shroud of bog, weight of sin
Bone of dog, crocodile’s grin
Curse this head to the size of a pin
You want to run your oven at low heat, around 200 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours. I baked my shrunken heads for about 4.5 hours and let them cool in the oven overnight. Then you can either use them to decorate around the house, a spooky garland or wreath, just for the season or you could try preserving them with a varnish, lacquer, or any other method you might use to preserve real ornamental fruit.
I had my heads chilled in the refrigerator until I was ready to serve them. My plan for these guys was to have them in some spiked hot cider beside a bonfire. Now all that’s left is to put a shrunken head in a mug and ladle your hot cider overtop of it.
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