My most recent Halloween decorations are these ghostly visitors! Ghosts, bats and pumpkins are probably my favourite Halloween characters. I like that these ghosts are so mobile and you can prop them up anywhere. If you have a garden by your front door, you could stick them into the lawn like scarecrows! I think one by itself would also be cute, but I thought if I was making one, I might as well make four. Don’t forget to make them different sizes, if you want a ghost family like me
You will need:
4 Balloons
Kitchen towel
PVA
Paint brush
4 Jam jars
White bin bags
White mesh / gauze / net (as long as it’s cheap and a little transparent!) I used 4 metres
4 sticks
Gardening wire
Wire cutters
Masking tape
Black Card
Step 1: Blow up your balloons and cover them in paper mache! If you haven’t done this before, just fill a jar with half water and half pva, dip strips of kitchen towel into the jar and smooth them, overlapping, onto the balloon. Do two or three layers, and put the balloons in jars so that they stay upright. Leave to dry overnight.
Step 2: Wrap wire around the top half of the stick to form ghost arms. If your wire is sliding down the stick, tape into place.
Step 3: Once your paper mache is fully dry, tape it onto the top of the stick to form the head!
Step 4: Cut the handles off the bin bags and pull them over the top of the ghost. Secure the bin bags around the neck by tying with a bin bag handle. For larger ghosts, you might want to chop up the bin bags and tape them together to get a bigger ghost body!
Step 5: Drape your transparent fabric over the top of the ghost body and tie with a strip of fabric
Step 6: Cut out eyes and a mouth from the black card, and glue onto the ghost face.
There you have it, a nice family of ghosts to welcome you home until Halloween. Mine are currently inside lurking in dark corners, as it’s been rather rainy… I will put them outside for Halloween and hopefully we’ll get lots of trick or treaters!
This idea is so cool!! I will def follow your steps to decorate this way! This is so much fun!
Diana
http://www.ManhattanImageandStyle.com
Jess!! These are BRILLIANT! So convincing and I love that you can adapt size and features so easily. I might try making one with a little ghost cape with some black netting I have left over from a tutu! I love your DIYs – they are so creative and unique feel really genuine rather than some craft blogs which feel a bit forced and laboured in coming up with ideas. XXX
Hello, thanks so much for stopping by my blog and commenting!
This is such a great idea, and so well done!
Have a great day,
-Kati
I LOVE this idea! It’s simple but fun and so much cheaper than going out and buying pre-made ghosties. Thanks, as always, for sharing your awesome DIYs:)
That will be fun halloween night. Can’t wait to see.
These guys look like fun!
your ghost family looks so cute.great idea
you have the cutest life, i swear! xx
I love it to much to even start to express.
Oh my gosh, these are the cutest! Love this project.
-Becca
Ladyface Blog
This is such lovely DIY <3 oh my, my heart is melting
http://coeursdefoxes.blogspot.com/
♥