Hello friends!!! My goodness it has been busy this year. I am so sorry I disappeared this summer and the first couple of months of school. Life has been crazy, and I just haven’t had time to devote to my blog. Now that things have calmed down somewhat, I decided to get back into blogging by starting out with this simple DIY ghost themed Halloween party.
Let’s Catch Up!
Before I get into the details of the party, I want to give you an update on life, and what has been going on. Other than working on the garage and the house with my dad, I have been making a lot of cakes for friends and family. It has been so much fun! I truly enjoy making beautiful and unique cakes. They can be very time consuming, but I hope that I get to make more in the future. Pictures of all of these cakes have been posted on my Facebook page, but eventually I will add some blog posts about them as well.
Another fun thing that has taken up quite a bit of time has been our local Farmer’s Market. If your kids are in dance competitions, you know that it can be very expensive. This year I decided to have my daughter work for some of it. She created all sorts of fun crafts to sell each week, and earned a good chunk of the money that was needed for her competitions this year. It was a wonderful lesson for her, and we are excited to be involved in it again next year!
School Schedule
On top of all that, my daughter’s schedule is crazy this year! Our mornings are spent doing school work. Mondays, she has soccer, which has been wonderful. It is in the middle of the day, and it is with other homeschoolers! It is such a great place for her to socialize with kids in similar situations. The next three days of the week have been taken over by dance. She absolutely loves dance, which is why it doesn’t bother me too much spending three evenings in a row at dance class. That leaves only Friday for playdates or field trips. I love that she loves doing so many things, but this will definitely need to change next year. This mama is getting worn out by this schedule.
Plus, on Tuesday evenings, right after dance, she has Awana. She has done this for the past two years, and absolutely loves it. The only thing different this year is that I am now volunteering there. I get the wonderful privilege to be a Cubbie Leader, which means I get to hangout with the youngest of the kiddos there. They are the sweetest little ones ever, and I absolutely love being able to teach them about God. This has definitely been a blessing for me this year.
That is what has been happening in a nut shell. Now let me show you just how easily I put this fun ghost party together!
Ghost Kids
Supplies
- 4 light colored dish towels
- 4 vinyl rolls or cardboard rolls
- 4 pieces of white fabric 24″x24″ each
- 4 hair elastics
- Small amount of black felt
- 2 pairs of kids jeans (I used 18 month size)
- 2 pairs of shoes – 1 boy and 1 girl (I used the smallest sizes my kids had in the house)
- 2 clothes pins
- Decorative Halloween ribbon
- Scissors
- Craft glue tape
All of these supplies and materials were things that I found around my house. We are on a very tight budget this year, so I have been trying to avoid buying things for the ghost party. This idea of making ghost kids came from another crafter, but they used a white pool noodle to make these kids. I didn’t want to buy pool noodles for this, so I came up with a way around it. If you have a pool noodle, this craft will be even simpler.
Leg and Body Structure
For the structure of these ghost kids, I took one dish towel and folded it the long way and then the short way. I then rolled it up tightly and set it aside. Then I took another dish towel and folded it once, so that it was still long. This is when I laid it out flat on the table. Then I placed the rolled up dish towel in the middle with a roll of vinyl on each side of it, just like the picture below.
Now I simply rolled it all up tightly, and secured each end with a hair elastic around the dish towel and the vinyl roll.
The structure for your ghost kid is made! Simply bend this structure so that it is ready for the pants to be put on over the vinyl rolls.
Once you carefully put the pants on, and stand it up in the shoes, it really starts looking cute! To hold up the pants, I put a clothes pin at the top of the pants between the vinyl rolls.
Ghost Head
For the head, I found some white fabric to go over the top of the structure. My white fabric was thinner, so I ended up cutting two pieces of fabric for each ghost. I didn’t want the structure to be seen through the fabric. The size of the fabric doesn’t need to be exactly 24″x24″, but at least close. My fabric was closer to 22″x24″. Then I took the two pieces of fabric and placed them on top of each other, just like the picture below.
I then placed the fabric over the structure as centered as I could. Then I adjusted it until I was happy with how it looked.
The last thing to do is cut 2 circles and an oval out of the black felt. If you are making a girl ghost, you can make a bow out of some cute Halloween ribbon. These items can then be attached to the white fabric with craft glue tape. The cutest and easiest little ghost decorations are done!!!
Pom-Pom Toss Ghost Game
This next craft is a little bit more time consuming, but it is still very easy. It resembles a small table top corn hole game. All you need is thick cardboard, an X-acto knife, ribbon, white paint, a hot glue gun, scissors, and plastic treat bags. Let’s get started!
Cardboard Cut Out
Start by drawing a ghost on your cardboard. I used a black Sharpie marker, so that it would be easy to see. The ghost was around 10″x14″. I left enough of the cardboard to cut out two rectangles for structural supports for the back of the ghost.
I then cut out the ghost, eyes, and mouth with an X-acto knife. Make sure you use a cutting mat under the cardboard. This is definitely something that an adult should be doing if your kiddos are helping out.
Once the ghost is cut out, I use the rest of the cardboard to cut a rectangle that fits on the back of the ghost just above the eyes (about 3″x6″). To support that piece, I cut a smaller rectangle to go above that one (about 2″x3″). Then I painted all of the pieces white on both front and back. When the paint has dried, go ahead and hot glue the supports on the back of the ghost as seen in the picture below.
Trim and Finish
Now, the edges of cardboard can be sharp, and could give your little ones a paper cut. Instead of painting the edges, I used hot glue to attach 3/8″ ribbon on every open edge including the eyes, mouth, and supports. This is another part of the craft that an adult should be doing. You may need a different size of ribbon depending on the thickness of your cardboard.
So that the kids can tell when they actually get a pom-pom in one of the holes, I added some bags to the back of the holes. I took a treat bag and cut it to where there was about 2 inches of the bag left. Then I folded the edges back, and hot glued them around each hole.
The last thing to do is have your kids decorate the front of it. We had some fun foam stickers, so they decorated with those. Now all that is left is to find some pom-poms and start making points with this cute little ghost game!!
Ghost Scavenger Hunt
For a fun game that all of the kids can do, I created a little ghost scavenger hunt. This hunt includes all of the creations we have already made! I simply cut out 8 ghosts from index cards. Then I had my daughter make all of their faces. On the other side of each of them, I wrote out all of the clues. Feel free to use these clues for your ghost party!
I plan on ending this scavenger hunt with a treasure chest covered with a white sheet or table cloth. Then I will have two large eyes and a mouth on it, so it will look like a large ghost. Inside the treasure chest will be a bag full of candy for each child at the ghost party. How fun will this be! I can’t wait! Our party is next weekend, so I will let you know how it goes, along with some food and dessert ideas.
Thank You!!!
To end my blog today, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me through this journey. I got a little burnt out over the summer, but I am back and ready to share more ideas with you. As often as I can, I will be posting, but it probably will not be every week like previously. Our schedule is just way too busy this school year. Plus, I really want to start making creations to sell, and possibly start up a Homeloved Mama Etsy shop. It will be fun for me, and we could really use the extra income right now.
Art Class
Before I go, I want to share a beautiful drawing of a tree that my daughter made this week. She is taking an art class through Schoolhouse Teachers that has a video each week of a different drawing, and it shows you step by step how to draw it. This week, she wasn’t necessarily fond of drawing a tree. She has her own way of drawing trees, and this wasn’t what she wanted to draw this week. When it got to the point of adding leaves, she looked at me with that face of I don’t want to do this anymore. Then I came up with a great idea of having her color the tree black and turning it into a Halloween scene. She was happy, and it is now a beautiful decoration for our party! We didn’t have any ghost stickers, but it is still a super cute decoration for a ghost party!
All in all, she absolutely loves this art class she is taking this year. It is teaching her how to to draw so many things. As you know, I am an affiliate for Schoolhouse Teachers. If you are at all interested in this art class, you can find it at https://schoolhouseteachers.com/school-subjects/art/achieving-art-success-with-artachieve/ref/119608/. Please message me if you have any questions about Schoolhouse Teachers or homeschooling in general. I would love to answer your questions!
God bless all of you! Start each day with this verse, and have a wonderful week! Thank you for reading!
This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24