Ghosts in a Jar!! Aren’t they so cute? It’s like you caught a ghost and am keeping it in jar like you might a bug. Nevermind that ghosts can go through walls. Apparently they can’t get through mason jars. Mason jars are kinda magical so just go with me on this… 🙂
If you’d like to make your own little captive haunters, this is what you’ll need:
- mason jars
- cheese cloth
- liquid starch
- 1 1/4″ wooden “ball knobs” (found at Hobby Lobby)
- 3/4″x 5/8″ wooden spools (found at Hobby Lobby
- 1/8″ wood dowel (found at Hobby Lobby)
- Hot glue gun & glue
- black craft paint or black sharpie
STEP ONE: Hot glue one of the spools to the underside of the mason jar lid.
STEP TWO: Cut wood dowel (easily done with some good scissors) to the height you’d like your ghost to be. Hot glue it into the spool. Hot glue a wooden knob onto the top of dowel. Add any additional wood dowel pieces to form arms, if desired. Just make sure they will fit through the mouth of the mason jar when you’re done! SIDE NOTE: If I were doing this craft again, I would paint the knob white at this point. This will keep the wood from showing through the cheesecloth at the end. Not a SUPER big deal, but I would. 🙂
I did one with arms and two without for variety. I also made one tall and one short.
STEP THREE: Layer several pieces of cheesecloth together (I ended up doing four layers) over top of your newly created “ghost forms” and dry cut the shape/length you’d like them to be. Make them a little longer than you think you’ll need as the next step will shrink the cheese cloth a little.
STEP FOUR: Pour some liquid starch in a bowl and then, keeping the layers together, immerse the cheesecloth for one of the ghosts into the liquid starch until saturated.
STEP FIVE: Remove cheesecloth from bowl and squeeze out any excess starch. Carefully flatten out the cheesecloth and then drape over your ghost form. Play with it a little to shape it how you’d like and then allow to dry completely.
STEP SIX: Dot a couple of eyes on using black craft paint or a sharpie. Carefully put the lid back on the mason jar and trap your new little ghost inside!
STEP SEVEN: Optional but I decided to add a little 1 1/4″ strip of scrapbook paper around the base to cute it up a bit. Just wrapped it and taped it with scotch tape. Boom.
I squeal at the cuteness! Here are a few more Halloween craft ideas you might like this Halloween:
PS I originally shared this over at eighteen25’s amazing Spooktacular September Event HERE. It is still going on and there have been so many awesome Halloween ideas! Be sure to go check it out!
My boys would absolutely love these!
These are so adorable and fun!
These are so stinken cute!!!
I was wondering if you also made the white stands that your little ghosts are on??
Yes! You can see the tutorial here: http://www.landeeseelandeedo.com/2013/10/diy-pedestals-displaying-objects.html
Thanks for stopping by!
On the ghost in a jar….did you use wide mouth jars or the narrow ones?
Wide jars are a bit more stable. Thanks for stopping by!
I have never heard of liquid starch. Where do you buy it? And what do you mix it with? Thx
I could only find it at Walmart and it’s in the laundry supplies aisle. Simply follow the instructions on the bottle… I didn’t mix it with anything! Let me know if you have any other questions!
How long do the ghosts take to dry. I would love to do this as a classroom craft.
Hi Jamie! It takes maybe an hour or two for them to fully dry.