The Ghost of Halloween

Guest Writer: Amy Hamblin

I found a great idea for a Halloween project that will be fun to have for years to come.  The kids thought that it was great too and that, to me, is the most important thing.

We made ghosts out of their footprints.  I wanted to use things that I had around the house:  I don’t know about you but I do not have money for a bunch of little crafts every day of the week.  You can improvise and use what you’ve got sitting around but here is what I found in my house that worked. 

• Bead board from an old project that was sitting out in the garage
• Small pieces of molding from an old bookshelf project
• Black and white paint from an old art project
• Orange, black and white ribbon from…who knows what
• Liquid nails…I could’ve use hot glue too but decided not to

This one does take a little bit of time and patience working with the kids, and paint, but the project goes like this: 

1. Paint the boards black and the molding white.  Let them both sit and dry. 

2. After your boards are dry dip the kid’s feet in paint and very carefully place it on the board.  I had to fill in the ghosts a little bit because apparently my kids have very nice arches in their feet.  Make sure that you have something to clean their feet off with so that you don’t have paint trailed all over your house. Then wait for that to dry.  

3. After the feet were dry I took a little tiny paint brush and put their names and the year on them.  When then kids had approved of what I wrote we let it dry some more.   

4. Next was putting on the ribbon and molding.  I just glued on the ribbon with the liquid nails and then put the molding right over the top of that with the liquid nails also.  The final touch was to let the kids add eyes and mouth to their ghosts.

I think that they turned out pretty cute.  I like that they look like little kids made them.  I do not like crafts that are supposed to be made by kids but look like the parents took over the whole project.  This one was a little more me than I like but the kids were there every step of the way…hehe pun intended. 

It was a fun project and I hope you enjoy making one at your house.