If you are looking for a fast and easy Halloween craft I highly suggest you try this one. It is so easy and FAST it took me about a half hour of work total (excluding drying time). With just a few supplies, you can make this adorable DIY tea light ghost decoration for your home!
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As I was looking online for Halloween decoration inspiration, I came across tea light ghosts quite a few times. I quickly realized I thought I could make these myself with items I already had at home without having to buy a single extra product and figured I would give it a shot. I am so glad I tried to do this myself instead of purchasing them, because this may have been one of the easiest DIY crafts I have ever done. Today, I am happy to share with all of you how I did this so you, too, can create this adorable little DIY tea light ghost for a cute and fun Halloween decoration for your home this season!
What You’ll Need:
- Air Dry Clay
- Rolling Pin (honestly, I realized I don’t have one, so I just improvised and used one of my kids’ wooden play cups. It worked perfectly!)
- Tin Foil
- A straw
- White Acrylic Paint
- Paint Brush
- Tea Light
How to a Make DIY Tea Light Ghost
For the clay, I used an open pack that I had from a craft over a year ago. This clay is fantastic because it stays in good condition for such a long time. I hadn’t touched it for so long and when I came back to use it the consistency was like new. I highly recommend it. Most people have a rolling pin, tin foil, and a straw already at home so this craft only requires an additional four products and all are very low cost, which is ideal for a seasonal craft!
To start this tea light ghost, I had to first roll out the clay. I used a piece of clay about the size of a golf ball. I rolled it out to about an eight of an inch thick. Since I am using air dry clay I wanted the clay to be relatively thin so it did not take too long to dry.
After rolling out the clay, I started to shape it. I did not need to do much, but I did want to round out the edges a bit so the corners were not pointy.
Once I was happy with the shape, I then moved on to getting the form ready. The form is super simple and just made up of two crumpled-up balls of tin foil. I did one larger bottom ball about the size of a golf ball and one smaller ball for the top. I placed the smaller one on top of the bigger one, basically making a tin foil snowman shape. I did not need to glue the two balls together because they fit well, but if you are having trouble with the form staying in place feel free to tape or glue the two balls together.
Once the form was stable, I added the ghost “face”. I used a plastic straw to punch out two eyes and used the straw again to punch out the mouth. To create the typical ghost mouth, I made two circles with straw to make the long face look.
I then carefully placed the sheet of clay over the top of the tin foil form. I did not do much shaping at this point. I let it fall as naturally as it would and used a bit of water on my finger to smooth any areas that were cracking. Other than that, I let it settle as it naturally did and left it that way. I felt this gave the ghost a more realistic look (how a sheet would look draped over someone).
Once this step was done, it was time to let the clay air dry. Because it is air dry clay it is a relatively slow process to let it dry. I left it alone to dry for about 24 hours. Once I came back to it, it was fully hardened and ready for the next step.
The next step was to paint the ghost. If you wanted to skip this step you absolutely could. The color of the clay barely changed, but I chose to paint the ghost to seal the clay a bit. I did two coats of white acrylic paint.
Two coats of white acrylic paint did the trick to give the clay a more uniform white look.
Once the paint dried, I placed it over the tea light and set it up as a decoration. I love the way it turned out. For such little effort, time, and money, it is such an adorable spooky ghost to add to our decor this year! Without further ado, here is the final result of my DIY tea light ghost!
If you liked this craft and would like inspiration for another, try this DIY No Sew Felt Bat and Ghost Garland.
