How To Make Hanging Ghosts: A Dollar Tree DIY!

It’s almost that time of year again, SPOOKY SEASON! While I am partial to Christmas, Halloween and this time from early September to October 31st is a close second favorite season of mine. Today I’m showing y’all how to make ghost decorations from all dollar tree supplies.

how to make a ghost garland, a dollar tree diy for less than $5

This is such an easy and cheap way to make some halloween decorations to go around your house. The best part is I found everything I needed at Dollar Tree and it cost me about $5 total. Let’s get into it.

Table of Contents

Supplies Needed For Making Hanging Ghosts

materials needed to make a diy ghost garland

Here are the things you will need from Dollar Tree when learning how to make ghosts:

Yard Stake (I got this for the chain, string, twine or string lights would work)
Ornaments (and the string they came with or any string will work)
White Tissue Paper
Scissors
Black Sharpie (I didn’t get mine at dollar tree, but you can definitely get a black pen from there)

AND THAT’S IT! Are you ready for a SUPER EASY TUTORIAL?

How To Make A Ghost Garland

Here are the steps I took to make a diy ghost garland decoration with items from my local Dollar Tree. If you can’t find these items, I have listed alternatives in the supply list above.

Step 1-Remove The Chain From The Lawn Post

making the diy ghost garland with the lawn post chain

separate the post from the chain to make the homemade ghost garland

First step in how to make a ghost garland is to remove the chain from the lawn post. That’s it, first step done. Super hard and time consuming I know, but hey, you got through it.

You can do whatever you want with the actual post. My kids are imaginative, super creative, and also super savage. This meant they decided to call them swords and spears and fight with them.

Yes I had to break up many fights before the evening was through.

Step 2-Fold And Cut The Tissue Paper

big sheet of tissue paper to become a ghost

Take the tissue paper, fold it in half and in half again as shown above. If you haven’t already guessed, this is going to be your ghost’s body. You can make it larger or smaller, but I found folding the tissue paper in fourths was a good size for me.

make a hole in the tissue paper for the top of the ghosts on the garland

Once the tissue paper is folded to your liking, take the scissors and cut a small hole in the middle of the tissue paper.

Step 3-Make The Ghost Garland

Next, take out the ornaments. I was originally going to cut a hole in the ornaments and then add a tea light, but that looked really horrible. If you want a lit garland, I would do this to string lights.

Remove the gold hanging part from the top, this is where we are going to secure the tissue paper. You can also use the mod podge if you like.

add the tissue paper to the ornament to make the ghost

Place folded tissue paper on the top of the ornament. Add the gold top hanger thingy back on top to secure the tissue paper onto the ornament, making the ghost body.

scrunch the tissue paper around the ornament to make the ghost body

I then scrunched the tissue paper to the ornament on the underside, opposite to the gold hanger thingy. This shapes the ghost body and makes it spooky.

Step 4-Draw The Ghost’s Face

draw some eyes and mouth to make a ghost face

Now it’s time to give our ghosties a face! Have fun with it, make them spooky, silly, classic, whatever you like! I went with the classic boo face and hand drew the eyes and mouth on the front of the ghost with a sharpie marker.

the tissue paper ghost for the garland, cute diy

Voila! How Cute is our little ghosty friend?? After finishing the first one, I made 4 more ghost decorations to add to my ghost garland.

Step 5-Add The Ghosts To The Chain And Admire!

Here are our Homemade Ghost Friends! How stinking cute did they turn out! AND SUPER EASY!

Then, as I was styling this, I got too excited and had to style the mantle for Halloween as well!

And light some candles! Adds to the spooky vibe!

do it yourself ghost decorations for halloween

Other Halloween Craft Ideas!

I got together with a couple of my creative friends and we decided to do a mini round up of some of our favorite Halloween Inspired craft projects!

My friend Jill from Bungalow 47 made these Faux Vintage Paper Mache Pumpkin using some of her own chalk paint products. How cute are these!

My friend Molly at The Good Golly Gal made this gorgeous and super intricate Sugar Skull that she named Sally. Go say HI to Molly and Sally!

My friend Alicia at Design Of Your Life made this Epic DIY Giant Spider! Spooky!

My friend Katy from Simply Gold Studio is excellent at sewing and she made this darling Embroidered Hand Towel!

My friend Alex at Gray Cedar Home made these Tomato Cage Ghosts! I love seeing them all lit up!

My friend Mandi from Making It With Mandi went thrifting (a girl after my own heart) and upcycled this home decor into a cute Halloween Decoration!

My friends Chica and Jo turned something unfortunate (a dead plant) into a free halloween decor item when they made this Dead Plant Halloween Decor!

Final Thoughts On How To Make Ghosts

My final thoughts on making diy ghost decorations for Halloween are that these are too cute not to make! It’s so easy and literally everything came from dollar tree so it is super cheap also. But, you don’t have to use the materials I did to achieve the same kind of vibe.

I have seen so many different tutorials on how to make ghosts with cheesecloth, yarn, paper, regular cloth, and a milk jug? I plan to make big ones for my front porch out of tomato cages. I’ll make those light up though, don’t worry.

So tell me…would you try something like this??

TOOD-A-LOO!