DIY Pom Pom Ghosts

These DIY Pom Pom Ghosts are a simple and fun Halloween project for all ages! Hang them on a garland or let them stand on their own!

I was doddering around my craft room the other day, just editing some photos and minding my own business when I heard the most peculiar thing.

I worried that the acoustics of the room weren’t up to snuff. Perhaps I botched the ceiling paint or hung a curtain askew, causing the sound waves to fracture and distort.

Because the thing I heard…

Well, the thing I heard must have been an artifact or a distortion – an echo, perhaps, that lost its way and became hopelessly garbled.

Or maybe I was having auditory hallucinations.

Hmmmm….I hadn’t licked any toads that day.

I checked my coffee cup, gave it a quick sniff.

Seemed okay.

There it was again!

It sounded remarkably like my wife’s voice, but the words spoken…

The words spoken were all wrong. Like they didn’t belong – not just in my craft room, but in this universe.

They were familiar words but alien sentences.

Strange phrases from another dimension.

I listened closer to try and divine their meaning.

“You’ll be making pom poms, my babes.” The words seemed to suggest.

Pom poms?

You see now how I started to doubt my sanity!

No man should ever hear those words!

I spun around in my chair to see the hideous apparition that would speak of such things!

There!

There it stood, and it looked exactly like my wife!

It spoke again. “My babes, did you hear me? You’ll be making pom poms for our next project.”

And then it hit me.

I wasn’t hallucinating.

The ceiling paint was perfect, and the curtains were hung with military precision.

This was real. This was happening.

My babes was actually suggesting that I—eater of large animals, drinker of strong whisky, slayer of tall weeds, savior of winged beasts, rider of powerful motorcycles and master of his domain—would deign to make pom poms!

“POM POMS!” I roared and rose like Zeus upon a thunderhead, stretching up to all of my five-feet-eight-and-three-quarters-inch height. “Little girls and old ladies make pom poms!” Lightning flashed behind my eyes and thunder boomed from my chest.

“Little girls, old ladies and you.” She said.

“But…” I saw the look on her face and my lightning bolts fled into the closet while my thunder rumbled off in search of more manly pastures.

I shriveled down to five-feet-eight-inches as the remnants of my manhood packed their bags and ran off after the receding thunder.

My face hung down, and my eyes became acquainted with the floor.

“Don’t worry, my babes.” She said. “You’ll then be turning those pom poms into ghosts.”

“Hmmm?” My eyes flicked back up to Handan.

“They’ll be so cute!” She said, and I sighed the sigh I’d sighed a thousand sighs before.

“Ho-kay, my babes. Pom pom ghosts it is. You’re so lucky I love you!”

If my babes wanted pom pom ghosts, my babes was gonna get pom pom ghosts!

• White yarn (2 or 3 weight – I like 2 weight the best)
• Pom pom maker
• Foam packing peanuts (small dowel pieces or your finger would also work)
• Sharp scissors
• Waxed dental floss or waxed thread
• Sharpie Brush marker

DIY Pom Pom Ghosts

Watch the video below or read the full tutorial after that.

When Handan first showed me the pom pom maker I’d be using to make our ghosts, I was totally baffled by the thing. There was no way I’d be able to figure out how to use the infernal contraption if Handan hadn’t shown me how. And even then, I was all elbows and angles. I couldn’t remember on which end to start wrapping because the damn thing made no sense!

How the hell do the old ladies and little girls who make all the pom poms understand and operate this complicated machinery??

Gah!

Apparently I’m an idiot.

Anyway, my babes figured out a little crutch for Old Dunderhead here. She put two little black marks like in the picture below. She used electrical tape, but two dots from a permanent marker would suffice.

I guess if I were making regular old pom poms, I wouldn’t need this crutch, but since I was making ghosts, and one end was different than the other, I needed to know where to start and stop.

Those black marks were my stopping point.

Or starting point. It doesn’t matter.

For the pom pom ghost below, I used the black marks as my stopping point. For the ghost I made in the video, I used them as a starting point.

Step 1 – Wrap

Either way, my first step was to wrap yarn halfway around the semicircle.

When I got halfway around, I put a packing peanut on the back half of the semicircle and loosely wrapped yarn around it. If you wrap too tight, you’ll crush your peanut.

Nobody likes a crushed peanut.

Oh, by the way, here’s a fun diversion while you’re mindlessly wrapping yarn around your pom pom maker: try saying “packing peanuts” 10 times as fast as you can.

😀

When I got about halfway down the peanut, I stacked another on top of it as shown below. Again, I wrapped it as gently as possible.

Once I had a whole bunch of wraps (a “whole bunch” is more than a “good amount” but far less than a “boatload”), I returned to wrapping the first half of the semicircle. This would eventually be the ghost’s head, so I wanted it to be nice and full.

I closed the first half and cut the yarn.

Moving on to the second half, I repeated all the steps of the first half.

When the two halves looked about equal, I closed it and cut the yarn.

Step 2 – Cut

Using small, sharp scissors, I cut through the yarn around the pom pom maker.

Here’s how it looked after cutting. The head is up top and the body is the longer yarn below.

Step 3 – Tie

I pulled out about 2 feet of waxed dental floss. Waxed floss or thread makes it easier to tie.

I tied it off with a double knot, and left the excess floss so I could hang these pom pom ghosts in a garland. If you just want your ghosts to sit tables and windowsills, you can trim the floss.

Next, I opened the pom pom maker (seriously, who dreams up these things?)

It looked more like a rag mop than a ghost at this point.

Step 4 – Trim

I pulled the floss over to one side so I didn’t accidentally cut it.

Then I grabbed the ghost by his long hair and gave his moppy head a good trimming. The closer you trim, the easier it is to draw his eyes and mouth.

Step 5 – Draw

And that’s all there is to it! You can hang these little guys in a garland, or you can plop them on their little white ghost butts.

Or if you made our DIY Spider Wreath, you could pull off its legs and repurpose it to use with your pom pom ghosts!

Anywhere you put them, they look great! They even kinda sorta maybe look a little cute. But don’t tell anyone I said so! I’ve got a reputation to protect!

And who’s that in the background?

You can play around with your trimming technique and make all sorts of pom pom ghosts!

The other ghosts were totally shocked by this smiling, dreadlocked Ghostafarian!

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