Ghastly Ghost Halloween Decoration

Holiday Hints

You can make a ghost stuffed with candy to serve at a Halloween party. Place wrapped candies in the ghost along with light newspaper stuffing. Substitute the white tissue paper glued onto the outside with newspaper strips. Allow this to dry and paint the ghost with white craft paint. Use a marker or black paint to make eyes and a mouth on your ghost. Hang the ghost from a rafter or beam in your home or a tree in your backyard, and allow blindfolded guests to take turns hitting it with a plastic bat to break it open and let the candies loose.

This ghost is environmentally friendly because it enables you to recycle your old newspapers into a Halloween decoration. Stand him up near your front door or hang him from a tree for a haunting effect.

Level: Moderately easy

Time involved: Two to three hours, plus overnight to dry

Materials:

Newspapers
Black marker
Scissors
Stapler and staples
Disposable bowl or cup
White glue
Water
Thick paintbrush
Pack of white tissue paper
White and black craft paints
Sharp scissors (optional)
String (optional)

Cover your work area with newspapers. On a flat surface, lay out six single pages of newspaper. Using a magic marker, draw an outline of a ghost on the newspapers. The head should be rounded and the bottom should be raggedy. Cut out the ghost outline. You should have six newspaper ghost shapes.
Using a stapler, staple the six newspaper ghosts together leaving about a 6-inch opening on one side. Crumple up other newspapers and stuff the ghost with these papers between the third and fourth layer of the newspaper ghost. (You should have three layers of newspaper ghosts on either side of the stuffing.) Be sure to stuff small pieces of newspaper in the raggedy edges at the bottom. Staple shut the 6-inch opening.
Mix about 1 cup white glue in a bowl with 1/4 cup water. Rip up white tissue paper into strips. Paint an area of the newspaper ghost with the glue mixture and smooth on a piece of tissue paper. Repeat this process until several layers of tissue paper cover the newsprint. Allow this side to dry. Repeat this process on the other side until the entire newspaper ghost is covered with tissue paper and no newsprint can be seen through the tissue paper. Be sure to mold some of the tissue paper around the edges to cover up the staples. Allow this to dry for several hours.
Paint one side of the ghost white and allow this to dry. Paint the other side white and allow it to dry. Make eyes and a mouth on the front of the ghost using black craft paint. Allow your ghost to dry overnight.
If desired, poke a hole in the top of the ghost with a pair of sharp scissors. (Parents should do this step.) Thread the string through the hole and hang your ghost from a tree branch

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