Easy, Inexpensive Halloween Ghost Lollipop Tree Centerpiece

This post was sponsored by Plaid and Blueprint Social. The project, opinions, ideas, and observations are entirely my own!

I don't do much decorating around the house for Halloween, and I feel kind of bad about that.  It's not that I want to go all out, like I love to do at Christmas, but I'd like to have some small bit of seasonal decor to help celebrate the holiday.  I have a six year old daughter completely obsessed with zombies and ghosts and all things spooky, after all.  I know she'd LOVE some Halloween decorations.

As always, this was an opportunity to create a fun crafty project, and as always, I didn't want to spend much money.  Using mostly materials I already had around the house, I put together this fun, colorful, bright, and not-too-spooky Halloween Lollipop Ghost Tree Centerpiece.

Materials for Inexpensive, Easy Halloween Ghost Tree Centerpiece:

• terracotta pot
• sticks gathered from yard
• Styrofoam disk that fits inside the pot
• Apple Barrel paints in classic Halloween colors
• Halloween fabric
• Glow in the Dark Mod Podge
• ​Rocks gathered from yard
• facial tissues
• black thread
• googly eyes
• lollipops

I thought about painting my terracotta pot (that was just sitting, empty, in the back yard) with some of my Apple Barrel paints, but I had some cute Halloween fabric and an intense desire to try out my new glow in the dark Mod Podge!  Covering a pot with fabric is easier than you might think.  I don't cut a precise piece of fabric, just one large enough to go all the way around.  I paint the Mod Podge on the surface of the pot, stretch the fabric snugly around the pot, and paint another layer of Mod Podge on top of the fabric, letting it soak through the fabric completely.  

The raw, uneven edges get folded down the inside of the pot, and Mod Podged in place.  Excess fabric gets trimmed from the bottom of the pot, and the rough edges are Mod Podged to the bottom of the teracotta pot.

Once the fabric is dry, wedge the Styrofoam disk in the bottom of the pot.

Gather some branches from the yard, and paint in classic, bright Halloween colors.  You could use just one color, of course, but I wanted a patchwork, whimsical look for my centerpiece.  The multi-surface paint covered my branches spectacularly in one quick coat.

While the branches were drying, I made my lollipop ghosts.  I simply raided the candy jar for lollipops (my children hoard candy, but never seem to eat much of it), wrapped a facial tissue around the candy end, and tied my little ghosts up with black thread.

I ran a line of hot glue up the back of each ghost's head, and set the string in the glue, so that the string would be attached to the ghost more at the top of the head than at the neck.  If you don't take this extra step, all your ghosts will fly horizontally.  It's not bad, but I wanted my ghosts to hover vertically.

A pair of googly eyes for each ghost make them perfectly friendly and fun.

Arrange the colorful, painted sticks in the fabric covered pot by inserting them into the Styrofoam disk.  Fill the pot with stones from the yard to add extra stability.

Tie the ghosts to the branches.

Sit back and enjoy your spooky masterpiece!  My kids and their friends love this Halloween decoration, and it's easy enough that they could have helped me make it.  So far, nobody has stolen any of the ghosts for after dinner treats, but I have to admit, there's an inherent risk in making edible centerpieces!  

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