make your own: simple cheesecloth ghosts.

My children love gory halloween decorations. Give them a tree of decapitated heads, as one neighbor has, and they’ll be squealing in delight. Give them an animatronic ghoul rising from the trash can as has another neighbor, and you’ll be biking the long way home every night to catch a glimpse. 

Around our apartment, I tend to encourage a slightly less gruesome approach to Halloween decorating. This year the biggest hit has been tiny cheesecloth ghosties. We made a larger one last year with old hankies and a dryer ball for a head, but this year little squares of cheesecloth and a small fistful of wool stuffing plus string means we can make many, quickly with very little effort and next to no mess. And just like that, we’ve quickly upped the spook factor of our apartment pre-Halloween without overwhelming things. 

The how-to is very straightforward, but in case any details aren’t clear, here they are:

Materials

+ Cheesecloth cut into rough squares (I tend to like tiny ghosts made from 6″x6″ squares, but any size will work)

+ Wool stuffing (or cotton or whatever else you have on hand, including balled up fabric scraps or tissue)

+ Cotton string

Instructions

+ Ball up a small fistful of wool or cotton stuffing and place it in the center of the cheesecloth square

+ Cinch the fabric around the ball of stuffing in the center, twisting the fabric slightly to make a tight neck

+ Secure the fabric with cotton butchers twine or other string, leaving a ~12-inch tail you can secure to chandeliers, bedposts, fence posts, doorframes, or anywhere else the spirit moves you. The more your cheesecloth frays, the better!

Boo!