Air Dry Clay Ghosts

These are the cutest homemade fall/halloween home decor and I love how they turned out. Air dry clay is easy to work with and very forgiving. It molds well, it's easy to fix any cracks, and you don't need an oven or kiln to finish the project. 

A few tips before we get started:

• The thicker you roll out your clay, the longer it takes to dry
• Let it dry a full 24 - 48 hours! This is a non-negotiable, especially if you want to paint yours. If it looks and feels dry after 12 hours, just be patient as the inside is still solidifying
• Take the time to smooth out the clay from fingerprints, little cracks, etc because those will show when it dries if you don't
  
• If it cracks as it's drying, don't panic! Just take your sponge with water and a tiny bit of clay. Wipe some clay over the crack with your finger. Use your sponge dipped in a bit of water to smooth the clay into the crack. Add some more clay to seal it and smooth again with the sponge. If an entire piece cracks off then I suggest scrapping that one and making a new one but you can still try and do some mending with wet clay and it might still work!

This post contains affiliate links, which means I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. 

Supplies:

• air dry clay
• rolling pin
•  circle template (I used a protein powder lid)
• small sponge
• aluminum foil
• small jar, taper candle holder, bud vase, etc to drape the clay over
• wood clay tools (you can definitely get creative if you don't have these. Butter knife, chopstick, tooth picks, etc)
• Mod Podge (if adding dried flowers or napkins)
• Paint brush
• Battery Operated Tea Lights
• Gloss Varnish (optional for glossy finish)
• Optional decor: napkins, dried flowers, acrylic paint

Steps: See my IG video here for more visuals!

Roll a chunk of clay into a ball and then flatten in your palm. I used two pieces of parchment paper to roll out the clay so it didn't stick to my counter or rolling pin. Put disc of clay on to parchment paper. Add piece of parchment paper on top. You can find the fun halloween paper here. Roll out clay into a circle shape until about 1/4 inch thick. 

Use a circular item to cut out a circle on the clay. I used the lid to our protein powder which was about 5 inches across. I did some ghosts smaller and larger than others. The circle does not need to be perfect if you just want to wing it. 

Next, roll a ball of aluminum to place on top of the opening of your small jar, bud vase, or whatever you plan to use to drape the clay over. I also added plastic wrap over the aluminum ball and jar so it was easy to pull it out after the clay dried. 

Drape the clay over the jar and try to line up the center of the clay circle to be the top of the ghosts head. The clay will naturally start to drape down and into a ghost shape but carefully shape the clay around the aluminum ball. Add folds along the bottom to create the ghost skirt shape. Don't worry about the cracks in the clay right now. We will fix that in the next step. This does not need to be perfect! Shape it however you like to achieve your own style of ghost. 

Once your ghost is to your liking then start to smooth out the cracks in the clay. Use a sponge that you dip in some water as you go along. You don't want the sponge soaking wet and dripping down the clay so just be mindful of how much water you're using. Smooth out cracks and polish up your ghosts. You can use your finger to smooth the cracks as well, especially in some of the folds where it's harder for the sponge to get into. 

The final step while the clay is still wet is to add the eyes and mouth. I used one of the clay tools with a point tip but a chopstick or toothpick would work as well. Start by poking a hole in the clay and then rotate your dowel to make it wider. Make sure you actually poke a hole all the way through the clay because we are going to add tea lights to these at the end so it glows through the eyes!

Keep your ghosts on their jars and let them dry 24-48 hours. The longer the better. If you plan to paint your ghost then let it dry 48 hours. Once they are dry, carefully take them off the jars and pull out the aluminum ball. I forgot to put plastic wrap on a couple of the ones I made but I was still able to get the aluminum out with my fingernails squeezing the aluminum to make it a bit smaller. If you see a crack in your clay after drying then use my tip at the beginning of the blog post to fix it. It's super easy to fix! Just let dry again before adding decor. 

Now it's time to decorate! I'm going to show you how I decorated mine but feel free to do something different. You can paint them white or paint on flowers. I would recommend using a primer on the clay before painting. 

For my ghosts I used dried pansies and cute napkins. Make sure you pull off the back of your paper napkin before using them. I cut out little flowers, mushrooms and leaves that I wanted from the napkins. I used mod podge to apply the dried flowers and napkin pieces. Just put a bit of mod podge on the spot you want the flower, stick the flower down, then add mod podge on top to seal it down. 

Once I had all my ghosts decorated, I let the mod podge dry and then added a gloss varnish on all my ghosts. This is optional but it seals everything in, helps stop any cracking, and makes your piece look glossy like it would if you put it in a kiln. 

Let the varnish dry and then your ghosts are done! Place your ghosts on top of battery operated tea lights (not fire!!!) and they glow beautifully at night. 

I had so much fun making these! I will be storing them in bubble wrap and pulling them out every fall as decor. They look so fabulous at night with the flickering tea lights under each ghost. There's so many fun paper napkins you can use to decorate them. I found my napkins at homegoods!

Enjoy!

xoxo shelby