How to Make a No-Sew Cheesecloth Ghost (Floating Halloween Decor)

Lay out everything in one spot before you start. You need cheesecloth (a 15-yard craft pack from the fabric store is around three dollars and makes about nine ghosts), liquid starch (Purex Sta-Flo is the brand the video uses), an empty 2-liter bottle, a small plastic bowl, a sheet of wax paper, floral wire, clear Scotch packing tape, aluminum foil, and black construction paper or felt for the face later.

The whole materials pile costs about five dollars per ghost if you are starting from zero, and closer to two dollars per ghost if you already have a bottle, a bowl, and wax paper at home. You probably do.

Roll out the cheesecloth and measure a square roughly three feet by three feet. Most craft-store cheesecloth comes off a roll that is already three feet wide, so just measure three feet down the length and snip across.

One three-foot square is enough for a single small ghost. If you want a taller ghost, scale up to a four-by-four square. If you are making a centerpiece pile of nine like the video, cut all nine squares now while the roll is already out.

Tear off a sheet of wax paper big enough to fit your finished ghost, and lay it on a cardboard sheet or a tray that you can move once the ghost is wet. The wax paper stops the starch from gluing the cheesecloth to your work surface.

Stand the empty 2-liter bottle upright on the wax paper. Flip a small plastic bowl upside down and set it on top of the bottle. That bowl is the ghost's head, the bottle is the body. Tape the rim of the bowl to the top of the bottle with a piece of clear Scotch tape so it does not slide off when you start draping the cheesecloth.

Cut a length of floral wire about twice the width of the bottle. Wrap it once around the body of the bottle at roughly shoulder height, with the two ends sticking straight out as arms.

Secure the wire to the bottle with two strips of clear Scotch tape so it cannot slide or rotate. Wrap a small piece of aluminum foil around each free end of the wire, just enough to round the tip into a soft hand shape. Without the foil, the arms dry to needle-sharp points that snag the cheesecloth.

Pour liquid starch straight into your plastic bowl - no need to dilute it with water. You only need an inch or so in the bottom; cheesecloth soaks the stuff up like a sponge.

Unfold the cheesecloth before you dunk it. Wet cheesecloth that is still folded is a tangled nightmare to open back up, and you will rip it. With it spread out, dunk the whole square into the starch, push it down until it is fully saturated, then lift it out and wring out the excess so it is wet but not dripping.

Open the wet cheesecloth back up and drape it over the form with the center of the square sitting on top of the head. Pull the cloth down over the arms so the floating wire and foil hands push through the fabric. Adjust until the silhouette reads as ghost from the front.

Now the most important shaping move: clump the cheesecloth around the base. All those bunched folds at the bottom dry stiff and become the legs the ghost stands on. Pinch downward folds running from the head to the floor - they dry stiffer than spread-out fabric, and they are what gives the ghost its shape.

Move the wax-paper tray to a warm, dry corner where nothing will bump it. Six to eight hours is the minimum; overnight is safer. Do not poke at it while it dries - the starch is still soft for the first couple of hours and any pressure will compress the shape.

Once it is fully dry and stiff to the touch, peel the base of the cheesecloth off the wax paper carefully. Then gently lift the whole ghost upward off the bottle-and-bowl form. If a section sticks, give it a gentle squeeze through the fabric - that loosens the starch and pops the cheesecloth free.

Cut two eyes and a mouth out of black construction paper or black felt. Big oval eyes with one smaller mouth read as cute, two narrow eyes with a wide grin read as spooky. Either works. Felt lasts longer if the ghost will live outside; paper is fine for an indoor mantel.

Plug in the hot glue gun and dab a small bead of glue on the back of each shape, then press it gently against the cheesecloth at the head. Hold for about three seconds while the glue cools. The hot glue is the only adhesive in the whole project, and it goes on at the very end so the rest of the build stays truly no-sew.