How to make these easy and fun floating witch hats for your front porch or indoors!
I have wanted to make these cute “floating” light up witch hats for our porch for years! It turned out to be a really easy way to add some cute Halloween decorations to our front porch, but you can hang them anywhere for easy decor.
I’ve tried two ways to create these hanging hats with two lighting options, which I’ll share here. Both are very simple, but one is so simple it only takes a few minutes to create each light-up witch’s hat.
I started with these cheap black witch hats:
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My first tutorial uses LEDs that are on a timer – once you turn them on, they will work for a certain amount of time. So turn it on in the evening and it will work every evening after that.
I used fishing line for this project because you want the hats to look as if they are floating on your porch. 🙂 If you don’t have that on hand, dental floss works too. (These don’t weigh much!)
How to make your witch hats glow
I tied the line around the voters’ “torch”:
You can also use small battery-operated tea lights as well.
Because I didn’t want to hang the votive at the top of the witch’s hat, I knew I would need to keep the fish line from pulling up.
You’ll want the candle to hang inside the hat, rather than resting on the brim itself.
To allow for this, I grabbed some metal spacers and washers that I had in my tool storage. I marked the space I wanted between the top of the hat and where I wanted to hang the candle.
Then wrap the fishing line around the spacers:
This allows the washer to pull into the tip of the hat instead of the candle!
Anything small with a little weight will work! The sole purpose is to prevent the candle from being drawn to the top of the witch’s hat.
Next, the simpler version!
Voters would be perfect for indoors, but for our balcony I wanted something a little brighter. I thought about what I had on hand and realized that our Christmas window candles would be perfect!
Our candles aren’t available anymore, but these floating candles I shared last week are very similar. They come with a remote control and operate on a timer like ours.
You can use the remote to set the amount of hours you want them to stay on. It will turn on at the same time every day after that, so you can hang it up high and forget about it!
I was able to tie fishing line around where the cover was installed at the bottom – quite easily:
Since the candles were hanging upside down, the lit part of the “flame” was actually in the middle of the hat:
So no need to add a washer! If the line is pulling the candle to the top of the hat, that’s okay.
How to Hang Floating Witch Hats
Using either method, you’ll need to take a sewing needle and pass fishing wire through it so you can insert the needle into the top of the witch’s hat:
It passes through the material easily!
Then figure out what height you want to hang the hat at and tie a loop on the end of the fishing wire so you can hang your hats. Make sure you knot it a few times so the line doesn’t slip out.
You can hang them at different heights from the ceiling of your front porch, around the front door, or, as I did, along the back of the porch beam:
I hung them from nails I had for Christmas lights, but you can use small cup hooks to attach them to the ceiling too.
Using birthday candles was the perfect solution! They have the perfect amount of light and operate on a timer or with a remote control.
When I remove these candles, they can move to the front windows for the holiday season. 🙂
I love the way the candles sway inside the hats…it’s the exact look I was going for!
This is so much fun!! Since I already had most of what I needed, I only spent the money on hats, which I will reuse every year.
The candles take two AA batteries and last for weeks.
Here are some other options for making this easy witch’s hat decor:
If you don’t have voters or candles, you can use glow sticks! They won’t glow forever, but these sticks last for 12 hours and are super bright. Perfect for trick or treaters on Halloween night! You can find most (if not all) of the items you will need for this project at the dollar store. If you don’t have fishing line, fine thread will also work. From afar you’ll hardly notice it. These floating hats are very lightweight, maybe you can use command hooks to hang them from the ceiling. These would be so fun indoors too – a group hung around a fireplace mantel or down a hallway would look great!
I love that our landscape lighting casts witch’s hat shadows all over the front porch:
What are some of your favorite Halloween porch decor ideas?
Check out a few of my favorite DIY decor projects over the years below:
Save this Halloween project for later by pinning this image:
