How to Make an Easy DIY Toddler Ghost Costume
This simple ghost Halloween costume is so easy to make and is the perfect inexpensive Halloween costume for your toddler! No pattern needed!
We decided to go super simple for our family Halloween costumes last year and I made this easy DIY ghost costume for my toddler.
I try to pick our costume theme based on what he’s enjoying at the moment, and he was in a phase of pretending to be a ghost, trying to scare us all the time (it was rather cute). I love making DIY Halloween costumes but I especially love when they’re easy like this one (sorry, but this momma needs a break sometimes, haha).
This simple diy ghost costume is so much fun for toddlers. Our little guy was so adorable in it on Halloween night!
To round out the ghost theme, I whipped up a couple quick Ghostbusters t-shirts for me and my husband. Easiest costume ever!
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What you need to make a ghost Halloween costume
- 1.5 yards of white fleece (I prefer fleece for the anti-fraying and the warmth—we usually have cold weather on Halloween night—but you could go with another white fabric if you want)
- sewing machine
- fabric scissors
- disappearing ink fabric pen and string
- black iron-on vinyl (or you could also use black felt, black adhesive felt, or a stencil and fabric paint)
- Cricut machine and Cricut Access subscription (the image I used for the ghost face requires a subscription, but you could easily create your own face with the free shapes or upload your own cut file)
- Cricut EasyPress Mini and pressing mat
- white pants (optional—I just put my son in grey pants that he already had and called it good!)
How to make an easy DIY ghost costume
This ghost costume is essentially a fleece poncho with a hood. This is ideal for a small child; if your child is older/taller, you may need to adjust the process to make a larger poncho (it will probably require a bit more sewing).
Cut the fleece into a large circle
1. Lay your fleece on a flat surface. Fold it on a diagonal to make a folded-in-half square (I didn’t photograph this part so follow my diagram below).
2. Fold again so the square is now in quarters.
3. Measure the middle (so you know the maximum size you can make the circle) and cut a piece of string that length.
4. Hold the string from the corner of the folded square and stretch it out, going in an arc, marking the arc on the fleece with your fabric pen (this is the blue in the diagram). Cut all layers of fabric along this arc (when you open the fabric, you will have a large circle, but don’t open it yet). You don’t necessarily have to use the string and pen method to mark the circle, I kind of eyed mine at parts. Be sure to save the excess fabric for making a hood later.
5. While the circle is still folded in quarters, cut another smaller circle from the center point for a neck hole.
6. My neck hole was about 5.5″ wide, so about 2.75″ when folded (your child’s head needs to be able to fit through it, but don’t make it too big or it’ll be harder to sew the hood on later).
Make a hood
On the extra fleece, trace the hood of an existing hooded jacket or sweatshirt that fits your child, leaving extra material for seam allowances as well as error—you can always make it smaller later. You need two of these pieces, but pay attention to the right/wrong sides of the fabric and mirror the second piece before tracing/cutting. You can see I left about 1.25 inches on all sides of the hood:
Lay the two hood pieces right sides together and sew the back, curved part of the hood with at least a 1/4″ seam allowance. Turn it right side out and test this on your child to see if it fits front to back, keeping in mind that you’ll still be turning the front edge under to finish it so it’s okay if it hangs past their face a little bit.
If it fits, move to the next step. If it’s too big, turn it inside out again and sew a closer seam, mirroring the first seam with a wider seam allowance.
Once the hood is the right size, you can trim the excess fabric a little closer to the seam if needed.
Turn the hood right side out and fold the opening of the hood to the inside to hem it. Since fleece doesn’t fray, you can just fold it under once, or you can turn it under twice to hide the raw edges if you prefer.
Next, you’re going to sew the hood inside the neck hole of the large circle of fleece you cut earlier. Have your child try on the hood and the poncho and position the hood inside the neck hole. Turn the neck hole inside to hide the raw edge and pin it to the poncho (you may have a couple inches of excess hood material which is fine). Pin all the way around the hood.
If your neck hole is wider than you want (mine was), you may have to gather or pleat the poncho a little bit to get the hood to fit right. In my pictures, you can see how I pleated the sides at the front so they would hit at about the shoulders (I didn’t want to have a weird fold right down the middle). I definitely could have done this part better, but hey, we’re saving time and money by not using a pattern!
Once you’ve gotten the hood pinned in place, you can sew a seam all the way around, being careful not to catch the other side of the poncho while sewing. Then you can trim the excess hood material closer to the seam.
Make hand holes
Next, decide where you want to place hand holes in the poncho. This will totally depend on your child, so have your child try on the poncho and mark where you want the holes to go (wherever it’ll be most comfortable for your child to have their hands). You can get an idea of where I placed mine in the image below.
Cut a slit for each hand hole (mine were about 4″ long). If desired, turn the edges to the inside and sew around the hand holes to hide the raw edges.
Add a ghost face
If you want to duplicate my ghost face, open my Ghost Halloween Costume project in Cricut Design Space.
I wanted my face to look a particular way, so I changed the eyes from the original ghost face image I chose in Design Space (you’re welcome to use either).
Once you’ve finished any edits, you can click Make It and follow the prompts to cut the face from iron-on vinyl. Don’t forget to mirror!
Once your vinyl is cut, weed it and position it on your fabric (you may find heat resistant tape helpful here). Before pressing, have your child try it on to make sure you like the positioning. Then lay the fabric on a pressing mat and press with your EasyPress Mini.
And you’re all done! Wahoo!
Other ghost halloween costume ideas
If you prefer to go the no-sew route, here are some other great ideas to make a toddler or kid’s ghost costume:
- Use a plain white bedsheet and cut eye holes from it (classic).
- Amazon has several options for ghost ponchos that are fairly cheap, no sewing or diy necessary!
- For a little girl, make or buy a white tulle skirt, iron on a ghost face to a white shirt, and put white ribbon bows in her hair.
- Iron on a ghost face to a white hoodie and wear white pants and shoes for a simple ghost outfit.
- Use an oversized t-shirt and a white beanie.
Feel free to complement any of these ghost costumes with white face paint, but I decided not to worry about face paint this year (I think I’m still worn out from my Batman and Joker Halloween costumes from a few years ago!).
Ghost DIY Toddler Halloween Costume
I hope you found this ghost costume tutorial helpful! This was a great costume for my toddler—and even better for mom since it was such an easy costume to throw together!
Don’t forget to pin and save for later!
Made the costume for my daughter of 19 months just the night before the halloween party at school. I didn’t have fleece so I made it out of old bed sheets and printed the eyes and mouth on iron-on transfer paper. I was afraid that the bed sheets were too thin, especially for the hood, but it turned out fine. Had to hand sew everything, but it was sooo easy to follow your tutorial. Daughter was happy and we received many compliments. Thanks a lot!
That’s awesome, Charlene! It’s definitely a great last-minute costume! I bet your daughter was absolutely adorable in her costume.
This is such a fab costume for little ones, really appreciated the step by step guide and no pattern sew!
My 4 and 1 year olds are absolutely delighted – and it’s such a great idea to have something warm that can go over other clothes! Thank you so much for sharing this 🙂
You are so welcome, Kirsty! I’m so glad you loved this! Makes my day to hear success stories.
If I want to make an adult size ghost, how many yards of fabric should I get?
That’s a great question! I’d measure your body from shoulders to where you want the bottom of the ghost fabric to sit: you’ll need your circle to be double that dimension. This will be more than the standard width of fleece, so you’ll need to piece two rectangles of fabric together to get a wide enough square to cut the circle from. Hope that helps!
Love this idea! We have a white hoodie. How much fabric would I need to make a hood less poncho to go over the sweatshirt?
I would get as much fabric as it is wide. So, if the fleece is 60 inches wide, I’d get at least 60 inches (about 1 and 3/4 yard). That way you can make a square to then turn it into a circle.
Hi Aubree,
Thank you for providing this costume!! I have tried to open your Cricut space to use the shapes as a reference for what size to make them but have not been successful. Would you happen to know the measurements of the face shapes? I am making this for my 2 year old granddaughter who does not live nearby.
Thank you!!
Hi Kathy! I’m so sorry for my delayed response–lots going on with the holiday. For anyone who sees this comment in the future and wants to know the face dimensions, the eyes are 2.41 in wide by 2.94 in tall. The mouth is 3.28 in wide by 6.29 in tall. I hope your costume turned out great anyway Kathy!
This is the first sewing project ive ever done (other than patching holes in work clothes) and it was so easy to do. It turned out so cute! My daughter loves her ghost costume! 🥰
Yay! That makes me so happy, Rylee! I’m so glad you had success with this.
Brand new to sewing so attempting this as my first project! What stitch would you recommend for the hood? I don’t have a machine so will be hand sewing. TIA
Hi Flora! I recommend looking up some YouTube tutorials for either hand sewing a “backstitch” or a “running stitch”. I only looked for a second, but this tutorial on backstitching looked to have some good info. Since your stitches will most likely be bigger than a sewing machine, I would double up your thread (use two strands) or even something thicker like embroidery floss. As long as you match thread color to your fabric, stitching won’t be too visible so don’t worry about being perfect! 🙂
Brilliant thank you so much! My little one is so excited for this to be ready. thanks for making such an accessible pattern ❤️
You’re very welcome! I’m so excited for you and your little!
So cute, planning to make this for my toddler this year! I’m wondering where you got the fabric from, or what you’d recommend? I don’t make new clothes too often… it’s hard to tell what fabric will be the right thickness, quality, etc. Thanks!
Hi Bea, I got the white fleece from Joann. Now that Joann is out of business, I’m not actually sure the best place to get fleece. I would check Hobby Lobby first. If you can’t find fleece by the yard, I’d find an inexpensive white fleece blanket and use that for the material. Other materials will probably work as well, but the thickness of fleece helps the hood keep its shape.
I am making this for my daughter. I got a 1.5 yard precut fleece from Walmart.
Amazing, I’m so glad you were able to find some at Walmart! Thanks for sharing, Vanessa!
Thank you for this! I whipped up two little ghost costumes so fast and my kids are SO CUTE in them! I used a fuzzy material that feels just like a blanket. I think my 5 year old will live in it after Halloween! My 1 year old looks just like ET waddling around the house. 😆
You’re welcome, Erika! Aw, that sounds adorable! I’m so glad you found this tutorial helpful.
is it possible to use plain bedsheet? or it wont have the same shape that a fleece can give?
I think a bedsheet would work! The hood will flop a little more –if needed, you could add a fusible interfacing to give it more structure but you probably wouldn’t have to. And the body will flow more, but I think that would be great for a ghost! Definitely worth a shot.
Hi, thank you for this tutorial! How large is the square of fleece that you started with? Was it 4.5′ x 4.5′ (basing that off the material list calling for 1.5 yards of fabric)?
Hi Alicia. I don’t remember exactly how wide the fabric was, but mostly likely 58 inches since that seems to be standard for fleece material. So a little over 4.5 feet. I hope that helps!
Hi. I found your tutorial and am so excited to make this for my toddler! I wanted to let you know I found an Amazon seller who has stolen your images for their listing 🙁
That’s awesome, Lissa! It’s such a fun toddler costume. And thank you for letting me know about the stolen images, working with Amazon to get them taken down!
Thank you so much for this! My 2.5 year old decided last week he wanted to be a ghost. I used white flannel because I had it on hand and found your Cricut design for the face! Turned out so cute and easy. Great for cold Halloweens.
Yay, I’m so glad this helped, Lucy! It really is such a great last-minute costume and I love that it can be made warm too!
Life saver! I have my 3 yo grandson with me for several days while his parents are out of town. He changed his mind about what he wanted his Halloween costume to be the night before his preschool Halloween party! He insisted on being a ghost. You came to my rescue! After tucking him in bed, I went to my craft room, pulled out white cotton left over from a quilting project and within an hour, a simple ghost was born! Just hoping it fits OK because no time to redo in the morning.
Thanks so much!
That’s awesome, Connie! I bet he was an adorable ghost! I’m so glad this helped. 🙂
Can you tell me the width of the fleece you used?
Hi Marilyn, that’s a great question. I don’t think I wrote down the width but it was from a standard bolt of fleece so I’m guessing about 58 inches wide. Whatever the width will determine how big you can make the circle. If you need extra length, try to find an extra wide fleece. I hope that helps!
It is perfect! Just what I was looking for. Thank you! Your family costumes are great!
Thanks Alison! I’m so glad this helped you!