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How to Decorate Sugar Skulls
Learn how to decorate sugar skulls for Día de Muertos, the colorful Mexican holiday dedicated to honoring and celebrating our loved ones who have passed away. On this page full of photos, I’ll explain how to use royal icing to decorate your sugar skulls, as well as how to embellish your Day of the Dead sugar skulls with beads, sequins, gems, glitter and more!
First, check out my sugar skulls below. Don’t they look fun to make?!
Making sugar skulls is a fun (and culturally relevant) way to celebrate Day of the Dead. You can do it at home, in the classroom, or run a special workshop at your church, library or community center. Why not invite a bunch of friends over and have a sugar skull decorating party?
Día de Muertos is celebrated from October 31 through November 2 each year. It is a special time for honoring and celebrating our loved ones who have passed over. The festivities for Day of the Dead begin weeks ahead of time, as sugar skulls are made and decorated to honor the dead and as well as celebrate the cycle of life and death.
Click here to read more about sugar skulls and their significance to Day of the Dead.
How to Decorate Sugar Skulls
Icing is the most important supply you will need to decorate sugar skulls. I highly recommend mixing royal icing with food coloring to get vibrant colors that you can apply to your sugar skulls. Royal icing becomes really hard when it dries and once dry, it lasts a long time without crumbling or disintegrating. You can buy pre-made icing in tubes from the grocery store, but those tubes of icing will not dry as hard as royal icing, so your sugar skulls would not be as long-lasting. If you choose to buy pre-mixed icing in tubes, be sure to stay away from anything marked “gel” or “icing gel”, because it will never dry!
You can use icing to make designs such as: waves, swirls, dots, flowers, stars, squiggles, crosses, zig-zags, mandalas, hearts, and more!
In addition to adding color and designs to sugar skulls, royal icing is important because it also acts as a “glue” to embed objects, such as:
- colored foil
- gems / rhinestones
- sequins
- glitter
- ribbons
- candy sprinkles
- fake feathers
- beads
- trinkets
- fake flowers
- doll clothes or miniature accessories, such as tiaras or hats
- anything else you can think of that will stick to the skull!
You don’t need to use glue when decorating your sugar skulls, because the icing is your glue.
Getting Started
The fun thing about decorating sugar skulls is that there are no rules in terms of what the skull should look like. Aside from decorating the basic features of the skull, such as the eyes, nose and teeth, your skull designs can be mostly abstract – consisting of colorful swirls, flowers or patterns, or you can decorate your skull to resemble a person with details such as hair, glasses, a hat, etc. Let your imagination run wild!
You can also decide if you want your sugar skull to be completely covered in color and designs, or if you want take a more minimalist approach. For instance, in the row of suagr skulls below, the skull to the left is the most decorated, with every spot on the skull covered with decorations. The middle skull is mostly covered in decoration but has some of the plain white sugar showing through, while the skull on the right has the most white sugar showing through. The amount of decoration that you apply to your skulls is up to you.
A great way to begin decorating your sugar skulls is to start with the eyes, then do the nose and teeth. That way you establish a focal point by creating the skull’s main features, which you can then decorate around.
If you are decorating more than one sugar skull, it can be handy to set up an assembly line of sorts. First do the eyes on a bunch of skulls and then set them aside to dry, so by the time you have finished the eyes on the last skull, the eyes of the first skull might be dry. This makes it easy to add decorations around the eyes without worrying about smudging the icing.
Also, if you plan to decorate a lot of skulls, set aside several hours to decorate them. If you get really detailed (which is part of the fun!), it can take a lot longer than you might think to finish the skulls. Plus, after you mix the icing, it will gradually begin to harden, so the bags of icing are only usable for a certain period of time, probably only a day.
Now I’ll show you lots of photos and ideas for how to decorate sugar skulls. This is the fun part!
Sugar Skulls Coloring Book For Adults: A Comprehensive Day Of The Deads Skull And Rosses +50 Pages Of Anti Stress Relaxing Drawings
by Painting ART Editorial
Delivery Wed, Nov 22
Ships to Poland
Sugar Skulls Coloring Book (Coloring is Fun) (Design Originals) 32 Fun & Quirky Art Activities Inspired by the Day of the Dead, from Thaneeya McArdle; Extra-Thick Perforated Pages Resist Bleed-Through
List: $9.99 $9.99
Delivery Tue, Nov 21
Ships to Poland
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$2.81 (50 used & new offers)
Sugar Skulls Coloring Book for Adults
by Eve Guzman
Delivery Wed, Nov 22
Ships to Poland
Description
Volume 3 of our popular Art with Edge Sugar Skull Coloring Books. Each of the 32 detailed sugar skull designs presents the perfect mix of cute and macabre scenes. Special metallic foil accent adds an extra pop of fun to your artwork. The perforated 8″ x 10″ pages are perfect for framing. Ideal for older kids and adult coloring enthusiasts.
SUGAR SKULLS COLORING PAGES: Features 32 Sugar Skulls Coloring Pages in Volume 3 of our popular Sugar Skull Coloring Books.
SUGAR SKULL ARTWORK: Detailed sugar skull designs are the perfect mix of cute and macabre.
FOIL ACCENTS: Special metallic foil accents add an extra pop of fun to your artwork.
COLOR & DISPLAY: Perforated pages are 8″ x 10″ and perfect for framing.
TEEN & ADULT COLORING: Ideal for older kids and adult coloring enthusiasts.
