Here are some easy yarn doll ghosts you can make at home using the same technique you’d use to make traditional yarn dolls.

Have you ever made yarn dolls before? They’re a traditional craft so maybe you have, or maybe you remember somebody else making them for you as a kid. I remember being shown how to make basic yarn dolls with braided arms and legs by my Auntie Nell when I was young.

Today, with a couple of simple twists, I’ve turned yarn dolls into yarn doll ghosts. Spooky, right? Actually I think they’re way too cute to be spooky, but they’ll definitely scare the pants off their ordinary braided yarn doll friends, haha.

How to make yarn doll ghosts

Follow the steps in this tutorial or scroll down to see them in action in our video.

You will need:

• Yarn
• A scrap of cardboard – mine is around 12 cm (4.7″)
• felt scraps cut into the shape of eyes and a mouth
• craft glue

How to:

Wrap yarn around your cardboard scrap until you have a nice, fat bundle.
Gently slide bundle off cardboard
Snip off a piece of yarn the same colour as your bundle and thread it through the centre of the bundle, then tie it tightly at the top
Cut the base of the bundle, so it is now a pile of string all the same length tied together in the middle
Part the top of the bundle in the centre and fold it back over itself, then tie a piece of yarn around it a bit below the top forming a “head”
Separate two smaller bunches from the main bunch, one on each side, and tie at the ends to form arms. Snip off the excess yarn at the ends to tidy them up
Tie the larger bunch together at the base, then snip the excess from the end.
Glue the felt scrap face on.

All done!

Aren’t they BOO-tiful?

Here is a video of the process to clarify the steps for you (I’m sure they sound much more complicated than they actually are!).

More yarn crafts you might like:

• Make some puffy, fluffy pom pom spiders
• Save the trimmings from your pom poms (and yarn ghosts!) and use them to make some fluffy yarn monsters
• These craft stick woven butterflies are made using a god’s Eye technique
• Our cute fluffy pet rocks are another way to use up old pom pom trimmings
• Try some classic finger knitting – great fun for kids!