Now that many of us are putting up our Halloween props, I’m sure some of y’all are scratching your heads – like I did – on how to get our ghosts to actually look more ghost-like and not like a flat hanging sheet.

I have created yard haunts for over 20 years, and believe it or not, I have never hung up a ghost I made myself. If there was one in my yard, it was store bought, with arms attached. It had been so long that I used a ghost, that I couldn’t remember how they configured the underbody, to make it have more substance. But with my Beetle Juice yard, I had to create the ghosts, and make the under frame myself. So here is how I did it:

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The Heads

At first I tried using a plain orange pumpkin for a head. Since most sheets are thin and slightly transparent, it was easy to see it was an orange pumpkin under the sheet. So I covered each pumpkin with black plastic/duct tape, and viewed it hanging again. The black made all the difference. 

The Arms

Then I had to think how I was going to get arms attached to that pumpkin, and what could I use that would be light enough, and bendable, so I could manipulate the ghost’s arms.  After slicing a noodle in half down the middle lengthwise, I knew there was not enough firmness, and ability to position the pieces into arms. 

I took my heavy gauge wire, cut a piece as long as the noodle length, and duct taped it really well on the inside part of the noodle. Adding the heavy wire allowed for manipulation of the arms/shoulders, without really adding weight. 

Attaching the Arms to the Head

I flipped the pumpkin head upside down, made sure the arms were equal in length on both sides, and duct taped it well to the back of the plastic-covered pumpkin head. 

Making the Ghosts Look Like They are Floating

I already knew I would use a heavy gauge clear fishing line to make the ghosts appear to float. Since my Max from Stranger Things stayed up well with 80 pound fishing line, I knew 50 pounds would be sufficient for both my ghosts. 

Before stringing the ghosts, I folded the sheets in half and marked a tiny dot in the middle, on that fold. This helped me keep the sheets evenly distributed for hanging. 

One of my plastic pumpkins had a hole in the bottom already. So I only really needed to pull out my Dremel for the other. I didn’t think the line would stay put well with just a big knot inside its head(under the hole).

Between wind and how slippery fishing line can be, I could envision the knot unwinding itself, and dropping the frame to the ground. So I took two wooden chopsticks, cut them a little shorter (so they’d sit flat against the bottom of the pumpkins), and tied the one end of fishing line to that stick and pulled the fishing line through the hole and sheet. The chopsticks ensured that line would be more secure, being knotted several times around the stick, and it stabilized the way the pumpkin hung. 

Changing Arm/Shoulder Positions After Being Hung

With the ghost hanging in place, it was easy to bend the shoulder areas up, and the arms outward, making them look bulked and ghost-like. Thanks to the wind, the ghosts turn on their own, and return back forward – which is pretty cool too. 

The Eyes

The eyes were simply ovals of felt, cut out and hot glued on, after the ghosts were attached to the under frames. 

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