DIY Glowing Ghosts

A friend of mine shared this the other day on Facebook 

and I thought it was awesome, so of course I need to 

share them on the blog. I will be doing one post a week 

until the week before Halloween to help you get new 

ideas to decorate before Halloween.

What you'll need for these awesome ghosts:

Chicken wire 1"x2'X50'

Tomato cage 54"x18"

Black trellis netting

Foam mannequin head

Think bendable wire

Wire cutters

Glow in the dark spray paint

Black spray paint

Cheesecloth

Fabric scissors

Clear packaging tape

How to create:

The head... cut a piece of chicken wire large enough

 to loosely wrap around the mannequin's head. Shape the 

wire to resemble a face, keeping the back of the head open. 

Remove the wire head from the mannequin, use small cut 

pieces of wire to attach the back of the head together. 

When done you should now have a wire head and neck.

Attaching the arm....

To make the body, cut a piece of chicken wire approximately

 3' wide. Bend the wire together and form a torso. This ghost 

only has one arm. Leave an opening at the top of the torso 

to attach the arm in a later step.

Attach the head to the top of the torso. You can fold

together 

the cut edges, or use small pieces of wire to secure the 

neck and body together. Bend another piece of the 

chicken wire to resemble a long bent arm. Use your 

own arm as a guide for proportions. Keep on end

wider and

 the end of the wrist skinnier. Attach the arm to the 

opening of the body by folding the cut ends together,

or using 

small pieces of wire. The edges don't need to be perfect,

 they will eventually be hidden by the cheesecloth.

The rest of the body....

Spray the tomato cage black and let it dry. Slide the body 

of the ghost onto the inverted tomato cage. Cut another 

piece of chicken wire making it large enough to get around

 the torso, and about 6' longer than the torso. Start shaping

 the wire to make the top part of a dress. Wrap the top of 

the dress around the ghost's torso securing in the back with 

wires. Use the wire cutters to cut the bottom of the dress into

approximately

5" strips. Bend the strips outward.

Finishing up...

Loosely wrap the black trellis netting around the base of the 

tomato cage to create the skirt of the ghost. The netting is hard 

to see and will help create the illusion that your ghost is floating.

Finishing the hand....use your glove. Grab your packaging tape. 

Start with the sticky side of the tape facing out. Start with 

wrapping around the wrist and then going up your hand. You 

wanna make sure you are overlapping the tape.

Don't wrap your tape too tight, work from the wrist up. When 

you get to the hand, wrap the tape across the palm and

 around the thumb, similar to how you might wrap a hand 

with a bandage.

Keep wrapping until the palm is covered. The back of the

 hand should be covered as well, again just like if you're 

putting a bandage on. Then start wrapping the index finger. 

Fingers will be tricky, because they are close together. 

Use the scissors as you are wrapping to cut any tape that 

sticks to itself. FInish wrapping all the fingers until everything

 on the hand is covered with tape. Remember you should be 

using multiple layers of tape on every step. Repeat each step 

8 times with the tape facing in now. This will give all your layers.

Removing the tape hand from the glove; from the wrist start

 cutting up to the fingers. Now take some tape to cover your seam.

Now finish up your ghost... Place the packing tape hand over 

the wrist of the ghost, so she looks like she's pointing. 

Drape the cheesecloth around your ghost, silhouetting the 

head, body and arm. To get the floating illusion have 

some of the cheesecloth extend to the skirt. Lastly spray 

the cheesecloth and hand with the glow in the dark paint.

Once dried, set your ghost(s) up in your yard.