Halloween Crafts: How to Make a Floating Ghost for Halloween

Decorate for your Halloween party, or just entertain passing Halloween trick-or-treaters by making this fun floating ghost for your home.

To make your floating ghost, start by finding the center of a bed sheet. You can find the center by folding the sheet in half in two directions and marking the spot where the two fold lines come together. Slip a safety pin through that point, to mark the center.

Next you will need to find something to be the head of your ghost. You can use a beach ball, an inflated balloon, or anything else with a good round shape that you have handy. Lay your sheet out on the floor with the safety pen on the bottom side, and put your ball in the center of the sheet. (You should have your safety pin on one side and your ball on the other.) Now gather the sheet up around the ball and tie a piece of string or white yarn to hold the gathers together. This will be your ghost's neck. The safety pin should end up right on top of your ghosts head.

Next you will need to add two more safety pens to help hold up your ghosts arms, about two-thirds of the way down between the neck and the bottom edge of the sheet. Choose a point on each side to put in your two other safety pins; one for each arm.

Next you will need three pieces of string. The thinner the string you use the less noticeable they will be, and the more it will look like your ghost is actually floating. I suggest using dental floss. It's quite thin, but very, very strong so you won't have to worry about your ghost falling down on one of your guests.

Tie a short piece of string to the safety pin on top of your ghosts head, and tie the other end of it to a hook in your ceiling. If you don't already have hooks in your ceiling; you can install a cup hook temporarily very easily. They screw in, and later if you unscrew it, it leaves a very small and barely noticeable hole.

Tie a longer piece of string to each of the two safety pins on your ghost's arms. Tie the other ends of those strings out on either side of your ghost so that his arms are spread wide. You can tie them to additional hooks in the ceiling or to other pieces of furniture that are handy. Do whatever works for you depending on how your home is laid out.

If you want to give your ghost a face, you have two options. Which one you use will depend on whether or not you intend to use your sheet for anything besides decoration later. If it is okay to draw on your sheet you can simply use magic markers or craft pens to draw your ghosts face on him. If you are going to need to turn your sheet back into a sheet later, use black electrical tape to make your ghosts facial features. Electrical tape is made of adhesive vinyl. You can cut out shapes for your ghost's eyes and mouth and then later you can peel them back off and it won't have damaged your sheet.

You can repeat this project with different size sheets or even pillow cases making a whole family of ghosts in your home.

Happy Halloween!

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