Betchalikeit

When Halloween time comes around, it's always fun to create some decorative Halloween crafts. Here's another example of an easy to make Halloween wood craft that really helps get folks into the goblin mode.

First, Make The Doll's Head And Body

The first step is to drill a few holes in the Styrofoam ball and the candle cup, which make up the Halloween craft's head and body. Start by cutting a 1/2 inch length of your wooden dowel. If your dowel doesn't quite fit into the small hole in the end of the candle cup, drill the hole out to the proper size. Then drill the same diameter hole about 1/4 inch deep into the Styrofoam ball. The length of dowel you cut will be used to attach the head to the body.

Next, select a drill bit the diameter of the toothpicks. Use a drill or rotary tool with this bit to drill two holes through the candle cup as indicated. The holes should be about 1/4 inch from the ends of the candle cup.

Add Arms And Legs To The Halloween Pumpkin Headed Doll

To make arms, cut off two 1 1/2 inch lengths of the thin dowel. Then, at about 1/4 inch from one end of the dowels, drill a hole using the toothpick diameter bit you used to drill through the candle cup. This will let you slip the dowels onto the top toothpick, making arms. After you glue the arms to the toothpicks, you can trim off the extra length of the toothpicks with a craft knife.

You'll notice that the body is already painted in this image. You may also want to paint the body the base color after drilling the toothpick holes, because it's more difficult to paint the entire body when all the other parts are assembled.

While the pumpkin headed doll arms are mounted to the outside of the candle cup, the legs are actually suspended from inside the candle cup, using the hole designed to hold a candle.

The legs are made from the tie rack pegs. As with the arm dowels, drill a hole about 1/4 inch from the ends of the tie rack pegs using the toothpick sized drill bit. Hold the drilled end of the tie rack pegs so that they protrude into the candle cup, then slide a toothpick through the candle cup holes, passing through the tie rack pegs. Glue the toothpick where it passes through the candle cup holes, and trim off the excess toothpick.

Give The Pumpkin Headed Doll Hands And Feet

For simple hands, use the 1/2 inch diameter wooden balls. If the ones you have don't have holes in them, drill a hole into them part way, just big enough to allow insertion of the arms. The balls I had were pre-drilled, so I just shaved down the ends of the arms with a craft knife so the ends would fit into the holes.

The split eggs are used to make feet for your Halloween craft. Just glue the feet onto the ends of the tie rack pegs, making sure that the flat side of the split eggs are down. Once the glue is dry, your pumpkin headed doll will be able to stand.

The Finished Halloween Pumpkin Headed Doll

To finish off your Pumpkin Headed Doll, glue on the head, and glue a length of green pipe cleaner to the top to represent the stem of your pumpkin. In the illustration, you can see that I also glued a green bead onto the head at the base of the pipe cleaner stem. Finally, paint to your taste.

As you can see, my Halloween pumpkin headed doll is wearing his tuxedo, and is ready for any Halloween party.

Using the parts listed on this web page will give you a doll that stands about 5 inches tall. You can scale up the size of the parts to make a bigger doll if you wish.

You can also use a wooden ball for the head if you prefer. I've made dolls with both Styrofoam heads and wooden heads. The wooden balls are easier to paint because of their smooth, non-absorbing surface. The Styrofoam balls, however, make dolls that are less top-heavy, and they stand up better.

Use The Technique To Make Other Dolls

The Halloween craft doll shown on this web page is a handy decoration, and fun to play with. But you don't have to make just Halloween dolls. The same technique with a little variation can be used to make other dolls, both for adornment and for play.

Shown at left is a Girl Doll. With this design, I glued doll hair onto the head, and added some lace around the bottom of the candle cup to make a pretty dress. See the Girl Doll page for another doll making example.