Halloween Crafts: Ghost and Bat Pillows and a Poofy Pumpkin Skirt!

October 5, 2021

Tara Rittler,

First, to get you into the mood for making some fun Halloween crafts – if you’re not already – check out this Spooky Swing Halloween Mix on YouTube. It’s managing to chase away “The Mondays” with its fun party feel. Next, keep reading to learn how to make ghost and bat pillows, and a poofy pumpkin skirt!

Ghost Pillow

A blog post written by my cousin, @wellfibre on Instagram, inspired a Friday-afternoon trip to Joann in pursuit of crafting materials. She created the cutest ghost pillow pattern. You can find it for FREE at wellfibre.com. It’s vintage-inspired, and I don’t have a ton of Halloween decor, so it seemed like a fun weekend project. I’m not going to give a step-by-step, since she provides that on her blog.

Since we don’t have a printer at home, I just free-handed the pattern. So mine has an extra-long neck and isn’t quite as cute as the original. But I still love him!

Well Fibre recommends using sherpa fabric, but we ended up going with something seriously soft – and extremely messy. Joss just fell in love with the feel of this particular fabric, and I don’t even know what it is. But pretty sure its primary use is baby blanket material. Regardless, because it was shedding so much before hemming, I ended up making a whole family of ghosts. All in an effort to use up the scraps so they couldn’t keep shedding all over the house for the foreseeable future. One member of the ghost family is a “ghost egg,” designed by Joss. Our cat would love it.

I enjoyed giving the extra ghosts different expressions. And the shapes were largely determined by the shape of my scrap fabric. So they’re all unique!

If you want to make your own miscellaneous ghosties, just cut a ghost shape from white fabric (two layers). Use felt to cut eyes and a mouth. Sew those to the outside of the top layer of fabric. I hand-stitched this. Then, use your machine to sew the top and bottom layers together, outsides facing in. Leave a hole at the bottom for stuffing! Turn your ghosts right side-out, and stuff. Hand-stitch the hole closed. And now you’ve got a new friend to love!

Bat Pillow

Speaking of new friends, I’m so excited about my new bat pillow!

I had lots of black material left over from making the ghost. I think I’d purchased half a yard, and only needed a little bit for the eyes and mouth. So I cut a large, simple bat shape for the body, and two large wings. Large enough to give you a good hug! I believe this was a cheap fleece, so it doesn’t fray. This is good because I didn’t stitch the wings at all, except to secure them to the body.

The process for making this bat pillow is just the same as the extra ghosts (see above section). Only you have to make sure to secure your wings when you sew the two sides together. I’m sorry I didn’t take a photo! But basically, when you have the outsides of the material facing in, the wings should be sandwiched between the two sides, where you can’t see them. When you flip it, they’ll be on the outside where you need them!

Joss insisted on putting a pocket on the bat, so now it has a baby to wear as well. The pocket is on the backside. We just cut a square of black fleece and hand-stitched it to the back before sewing the sides together. The baby bat was made out of regular crafting felt, all stitched by hand. This would be another fun and simple project, on a slightly smaller scale than the full pillow.

Poofy Pumpkin Skirt

I shared a tutorial for making a tulle skirt a few years ago. The ones I made back then were kid-sized. But my dad and step-mom recently brought us a vintage black cat in a pumpkin, and I was inspired to recreate it as a costume! The idea was just wear a black dress, cat ears, and simple face paint. And an orange tulle skirt decorated to look like a pumpkin.

To make your own pumpkin skirt, purchase more tulle than you think you’ll need. I purchased 10 yards of orange and 3 yards of yellow tulle initially. And then that wasn’t nearly enough to go around the waistband, so I purchased a 25-yard roll of orange tulle. Since the roll was so much narrower than the other tulle I’d purchased, it still wasn’t quite enough. But the volume was there, and I had a green ribbon to wrap around the elastic waistband, which allowed me to cover up any exposed band. I’d recommend starting with maybe 20 yards of orange tulle, if you’re buying it off a standard bolt, and 10 yards of yellow. I wanted to sprinkle the yellow throughout so it looked like the lines of a pumpkin.

Once you have your materials – tulle, elastic, green ribbon and black felt – follow my tulle skirt tutorial. Once you have the tulle all around the band, thread the green ribbon over and under the elastic, to secure it around the band. Tie a bow or knot in front.

Then, cut jack-o’-lantern eyes and nose from the black felt. I just attached them with safety pins so that I could wear the skirt without them if I ever wanted to.