Little Ghosts to Haunt Your Halloween Garden

Halloween is here! And here are some cute little ghosts to haunt your garden. This is a really simple DIY Halloween project. And, it’s kid friendly too.

And follow this link to my Video to see how it is done.

Tools and Materials

This Halloween project just needs a single western red cedar fence picket, some white paint, and a bit of black paint. And as far as tools you’ll need a jigsaw and a sharpie. Power tools of course do speed the operations and I used my 14 inch bandsaw with the 1/4” – 6TPI Timberwolf blade.

Layout

Layout of super simple. All you need to do is sketch if you ghosts and to the picket. I have included a few ideas that may help you along but this really is a free hand effort. By the way don’t be constrained by the sketch you see below. There’s a lot of options and opportunities to “design your own”. This is actually where kids will have the most fun so give them some paper and a pencil and have them work on doing some designs then you can translate those into wood and they will be so excited.

Cutting

Now comes the easy part using a jigsaw or a bandsaw just follow your lines and cut out the ghosts. I used a 14 inch bandsaw with the 1/4” – 6TPI Timberwolf blade. It cut through the Western Red Cedar like butter.

Painting the Body and Eyes

Finishing is very very easy. There is no sanding involved this is an outside project and it doesn’t require that. We do want to put on some white paint to make it look like a ghost. I used an exterior semi gloss white latex paint to give it a bit of protection and the correct color. Don’t forget to give the kids a paint brush and let them get messy.

For the eyes I used some black enamel that I had on hand and free hand painted the ovals. These little garden ghosts will only be out for a few weeks in generally OK weather then stored for the rest of the year. So they don’t really see a lot of abuse.

Stakes

The beauty of these little garden ghosts is that you can put them on stakes And plant them in your flower bed or put a small eye hook into them and hang them from your trees or trellis. I use steaks for mine by taking a couple of lath strips, cutting them to about 20 inches long, and then using a hand axe to put a point on them. I did not bother painting these. A hand axe is not a tool that most people have just laying around but if you’re doing any kind of woodworking it’s always good to have one close by. You will be amazed at the number of times you actually will pick it up once you start to use it.

Assembly

With ghosts and stakess in hand now it’s time for assembly. I used TiteBond III waterproof glue and then use 5/8” brads to tech the stakes in place while the glue dried.

Assembling the stakes to the Halloween Ghosts

Wrap Up

And, the project is done. I have to say they look really cute hanging out in our flower bed this Halloween. Both kids and neighbors think they’re fun and I’ve had several people ask if I could make some for them.

This project is so cheap and fast I suggest you give it a try and get your kids involved in making. They’ll love to use the jigsaw to cut the ghosts out and of course will love to paint them too. I’m sure they will offer some other types of decorations too.

Hope you got something out of this and if you did, do me a favor, hit like and subscribe. I’d appreciate that a lot.

Thanks for reading and until next time Good Making!

Bill

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