During Halloween, you’re bound to see ghosts everywhere, from ghost-themed snacks, to easy DIY costume ideas. My favorite way to incorporate ghosts into the holiday is by making these DIY Halloween scrap wood ghosts.
The local home stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s often have scrap pieces of 4 x 4 timber. This size is just perfect for making cute decorative pieces like these scrap wood ghosts.
Decorating for Halloween and Thanksgiving is such a fun thing to do. The kids love to help and the home gets a decor boost at the same time.
Are you looking for easy DIY Halloween decorations? These spooky wooden ghosts are fun to make and perfect to set a mood.
These DIY Halloween scrap wood ghosts are a fun project
For mine, I used an old mailbox post that my husband cut into pieces for me. It was a great way to use materials I already had on hand to celebrate the season.
I made over my mailbox this summer and the post was in pretty bad shape so I could not reuse it for that project, but it was perfect for this one.
I don’t mind imperfections on wood projects at all! To make the project you will need the following supplies:
- 3 pieces of 4 x 4 scrap wood (I used a 3″, a 5″ and an 8″ piece)
- Halloween ribbon for the hair and neckties
- Glue gun and hot glue sticks
- White acrylic paint
- Black acrylic paint
- Artist brush and normal paint brush
The first step was to do a bit of filling and sanding.
Even though I don’t mind imperfections, these pieces of wood had some long splits in them, so I just filled them for a smooth surface on the side I wanted to paint into faces.
Now it was time to paint. I used two coats of some left over white paint from my mailbox. It covered well since it had a primer in it.
Once it was very dry I outlined the faces on the pieces of wood with a pencil first and then a sharpie. Then I used an artist brush to paint the eyes and mouths on the ghosts.
While I could have chosen many things to paint on this scrap wood project, I picked ghosts because they are one of the most recognizable symbols of Halloween.
I painted mine free hand just by looking at the printable that I made.
You could also print it out and use transfer paper to get the design on your wood if you are not too handy with a paint brush.
Now came the fun part. Originally, I was going to just paint the faces and call it good, but when I got them done, I thought they needed a bit of window dressing.
I made the little one have long hair by cutting pieces of Halloween ribbon and attaching it to her head. The two larger ones are her “beaus” and they needed neckties.
They were easy to make with the scraps of ribbon that I had left from another project.
A bit of hot glue and my guys are all dressed up for the ball!
Staging Halloween scrap wood ghosts
And here they are staged on my steps.
I added a couple of real pumpkins decorated with stencils as well as a cute Halloween lantern and some faux gourds to set the stage. You could also use jack o lanterns instead of stenciled pumpkins.
They would be cute made up as snowmen too, for Christmas, wouldn’t they? I think that will be my next project!
Have you ever used scrap wood in DIY projects? What did you make out of them. I’d love to have you share your projects in the comments below.
Amanda Jarbou
Tuesday 25th of October 2022
Ghost faces