Caroline
This sponge painted ghost craft is a super simple and fun craft for little ones to make and it makes a festive addition to your Halloween decor in your home or classroom.
Halloween is a perfect time to get crafty with your kids. There are so many fun kids books and cute characters which makes for lots and lots of fun Halloween Craft ideas. We are starting our crafting a little early for the holiday at our house, but with so much that we want to get in, we couldn’t help ourselves!
[This post was originally shared on Cooking with Ruthie and published on September 4, 2015. It has been updated to include a template, updated test and tutorial and a how-to video.]
How to Make a Sponge Painted Ghost Craft
Read our easy step-by-step tutorial below for how to make your own sponge painted ghosts. Make sure to watch our video tutorial inside this post before get started too.
Supplies you will need:
- Ghost template <—– Get the craft template HERE
- black cardstock paper
- white paint
- white colored pencil (for tracing)
- small sponge
- paper plate (to pour your paint on)
- scissors
- glue stick
Instructions for creating this easy Ghost Craft
1. Download and print out the ghost template. Cut out the ghost pattern and use a white colored pencil to trace it onto a black piece of cardstock paper. Turn your black cardstock paper over so the traced ghost is face down.
2. Cut a small rectangle shape off of a normal sized kitchen sponge to use for painting. Pour white paint onto your paper plate.
3. Dab your sponge into the paint several times to coat it all over and then dab it onto your black cardstock paper. It’s ok for some of the black to show through. It’s supposed to look that way to give it more of a translucent ghost appearance.
Continue dabbing into the white paint and then onto your black cardstock paper until it is covered. Set it aside to dry completely.
4. While your white paint is drying, cut out two eyes and a mouth for your ghost from black cardstock or construction paper. We found it helpful to draw the shapes with our white colored pencil and then cut them out.
5. After your white paint has finished drying, cut out the ghost image traced on the back of the black cardstock paper.
6. Use a glue stick or school glue to glue your eyes and mouth onto your sponge painted ghost.
Boo! Your easy peasy ghost craft is ready to hang up for Halloween at home or school.
Here is my 4-year old’s ghost below. I love incorporating skills into our crafts that help my preschooler prepare for Kindergarten. In this particular craft, cutting out the eyes and mouth shapes was excellent scissor practice.
Having children design and cut out their own eyes and mouth for their ghost is a perfect way to add some personalization to this craft. It makes it a great Halloween class art project since each child’s ghost will have it own unique look hung up on a classroom bulletin board.
Related: Halloween Windsocks
If you want to hang your ghost from a mantle or a chandelier as some spooky Halloween decor, punch a hole at the top of your ghost and tie some white string to it.
More Easy Halloween Preschool Crafts
Paper plate, googly eyes and pipe cleaners come together to create these not-so-spooky, adorable paper plate Halloween spiders. An easy craft to make and display for Halloween.
Add some fun fine motor work into your Halloween festivities by making this awesome yarn wrapped mummy craft. Our template helps make prep time a breeze!
Preschoolers love playing with puppets, especially ones they make themselves. Here’s a fun way to turn paper lunch bags into fun paper bag monster puppets.
Check out our complete list of fun and easy Halloween crafts for kids!
