Ghost Earrings DIY
These faux leather ghost earrings are perfect to show your BOO-tiful Halloween spirit.
This ghost earrings diy is easy and these faux leather earrings are just darling!
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In this post, I’ll show you several versions of this faux leather earrings Halloween project. I’ll also link up my materials to help you repeat the project with the same materials. And as an added bonus my video tutorial will share how-to basics for creating faux leather earrings with a Cricut machine.
Most people don’t know that faux leather earrings and genuine leather earrings are easy to make by cutting the leather and faux leather on your Cricut machine. And the best part is that you can easily cut all of these materials on a both a Cricut Explore or Cricut Maker. Simply cut the leather materials and add earring jump rings and hooks and you’re ready to go.
Check out my favorite DIY earring essentials on Amazon here!
Check out my favorite DIY earring materials on Amazon here!
My Favorite Cricut Machine Options
Cutting Tool and Accessory Essentials
Must Have Earring Tools
Must-Have Earring Findings
Heat Press Essentials
Heat Transfer Vinyl
I used to only purchase Cricut brand HTV; however, the colors are very limited. I know enjoy the large range of HTV colors available on Amazon. Check them out here.
Project Photos
blue glitter faux leather (cut on shimmered leather)
double-sided black faux leather – I LOVE this double-sided faux leather kit on Amazon. I have ordered this item A LOT! I love it because it cuts very nicely on my Cricut (genuine leather setting) and it looks great on both sides!
smooth white leather
double-sided black faux leather – I LOVE this double-sided faux leather kit on Amazon. I have ordered this item A LOT! I love it because it cuts very nicely on my Cricut, and it looks great on both sides!
SVG File
You can find many templates for your earrings on Design Bundles, Pinterest and Etsy. Some bloggers offer them for free and others are available for sale on various websites.
I shopped around for this darling ghost svg file. I found the ghost shape I wanted in a file that included more elements. It was actually a design shown on a baby onesie. I deleted the extra elements and just used the ghost.
Check out my project YouTube video below.
Materials Cricut Settings
Click on the Browse All Materials link to see the menu of materials options on your Cricut.
When I use non-Cricut faux leather, the Shimmer Leather option normally works best for me. For this ghost earrings diy, I used the Shimmered Leather option for all of the thin glitter faux leather and the white faux leather (all the front layers).
You can also use genuine leather to cut real leather Halloween ghost earrings. When doing this, I normally select the Genuine leather option from the Material Settings menu. I also use the genuine leather setting when I use Heat n Bond to adhere two thicker pieces of faux leather together (making double-sided faux leather) before I make my cuts. This setting also works great when I cut the double-side faux leather and double-side glitter sheets that I order on Amazon.
Star Wheels
The Cricut machine has star wheels to keep materials from shifting during cutting. However, when cutting thicker materials, the star wheels can leave track marks. When you select a material from the browse menu that is thicker, the Cricut machine will prompt you to move the star wheels to the right. Be sure to move the star wheels when cutting genuine leather so that you don’t get track marks on your genuine leather.
Cricut Blade Selection
Make sure you are using the right blade.
You can cut faux leather, faux suede, cork, and leather on the Cricut Explore Air and Cricut Maker. When cutting faux leather, cork sheets, and faux suede, you can use the Cricut standard fine point blade. If you’re cutting genuine leather (or using that materials setting), you’ll need to use the Cricut deep blade. When I am working with a really thick glitter sheet, I do sometimes change to a deep cut blade.
Placing material on the cutting mat(s)
The approach you use to place the material on your mat plays a big role in your material cutting success.
How to get a good stick on the mat
Using an extremely sticky mat is one of the most important keys to get a good cut in the material. Some people attach the material to the mat with tape. I’m not a big fan of this because while it keeps the leather down on the edges, this approach doesn’t help the hold on other parts of the leather. For this reason, you won’t see me use tape very often.
That said, I always use tape any time I am cutting chunky glitter faux leather and fine faux leather sheets. I do this because the chunky glitter faux leather will not stick to the mat, regardless of how sticky the mat is.
Regardless of the material type, I always start by putting transfer tape on my mat. This approach keeps my mat clean and it also holds the material down really well (with the exception of glitter sheets) because it’s super sticky .
I use strong grip transfer tape for more challenging cuts and standard grip for other cuts. And sometimes I even use shelf liner paper from the Dollar Tree. Dollar Tree contact paper shelf liner paper does not have a very strong grip so I only use it on materials without stretch and cuts that don’t have center cut outs.
For these projects I used this bulk transfer tape. It is very economical!
I find that the center cutouts in earrings create a lot of pull on the material and I need something strong holding the material on my mat during the cut.
Material face down for face up?
My answer: it depends.
I used to always face my materials on the mat with the good side facing down. But a lot has changed for me over the years, and more specifically recently as I’ve begun to cut more printed and soft textured leathers.
There is nothing worse than buying beautiful printed leather and pulling it up from your mat to find that some of the print has pulled off. For this reason, I’ve begun to place these items (printed leathers) onto my mat with the good side facing up. But beware, if you don’t have transfer tape on your mat you will leave a BIG mess behind.
For chunky glitter, I place my faux leather glitter sheet onto the mat with the glitter side facing down and then tape the piece onto the mat.
I normally place my faux leather onto the mat with the good side facing down. And when cutting cork sheets, I most often put the material onto my mat with the good side facing up. I’ve cut it with the good side facing down as well, and it works that way too. Often, my material is adhered back to back prior to my cut (with Heat n Bond), so a good side has to be facing down. A photo of a double-sided black faux leather is below.
Using a Cricut Brayer
After placing the material on the mat, I always use a Cricut Brayer roller to press it nicely onto the mat. Again, getting a good stick of the material onto the mat is SUPER important for a good cut.
Size of Earrings
The size of earrings is a matter of preference.
For this project, I made the front ghost 1.75″ long and the back ghost 1.8″ long. The great thing about diy faux leather earrings is that you can make them as big or as small as you like!
How to Make Faux Leather Double Sided
The back of some faux leather and faux suede earrings aren’t very attractive because they are often canvas or felt. I often cut an extra faux leather or faux suede piece for the back of the earring and I glue a second piece to the back of it. This way if the earring turns, the felt or canvas isn’t exposed.
No worries if you don’t have double-sided leather, you can create earrings that look good on both sides by taking one of the approaches outlined below.
- Sometimes I cut the earrings and then glue them back to back. To do this, I glue two earrings together using either Crafter’s Pick Fabric glue or Aleene’s Glue.
- I adhere two pieces of faux leather or cork sheets together using Heat n Bond BEFORE I cut the leather. This is my new FAVORITE way to work. By gluing them together before I cut, my cuts are beautiful and it saves me a ton of time.
How to Cut the Faux Leather if the Cut doesn’t Go Through
While you hope it never happens, sometimes when you’re cutting thicker materials, the blade doesn’t make it all the way through the material.
When this happens, I first cut each earring component into a square because it is easier for me to handle smaller pieces when trimming.
I pull the faux leather apart to find the cut line and cut carefully along that line,
Trim any felt, fuzz, or glue from the earrings.
Using a pair of leather scissors, trim fuzz from around the earrings. Be very careful not to cut any of the earring, you’re only cutting the fuzz off of your leather earrings.
You can also smooth the earring by using a burnishing agent. I apply it with a toothpick along the edges. It’s great because it smooths the leather and helps better define the edges.
For these ghosts, I ran the burnishing agent around the outer edge of the ghosts and around the eyes.
Place a hole in the top of the earring.
I use a leather punch to put the holes in my DIY leather earrings. The tool linked above cuts through multiple layers of the earring at the same time and punches larger holes (2mm is the smallest).
Open the fish hook earring
The basic fish hook earrings below are easy to work with.
It doesn’t take much to put together earrings. You either need a couple of pairs of pliers or a jump ring tool and one pair of pliers. You can get the two tools below along with a full kit of earring hooks and jump rings on Amazon. It is the perfect starter set. Great for you if you’re getting started and a great gift for anyone that likes to DIY.
The jump ring tool and pliers below come in the kit linked above.
Open the hook
Take a close look at the loop closure at the bottom of the hook and figure out which side is the side that isn’t connected. You may need to lift the ball to see where the opening is.
If you want to place your earrings directly on the hook, you can do it by placing pliers on one side of the bottom wire.
Then place another pair of pliers on the other side of it (the round circle at the bottom of the hook). Don’t place the pliers on the hook above the circle part.
Turn the pliers that is on the side of the circle that isn’t connected to open the loop so that you can put the earring onto the hook.
You can then place the earrings in the opening and then close it back up.
Ball Wire Hooks
For these earrings, I chose to use ball wire earrings. These are super easy to use because you simply pull the earring onto the hook. I normally don’t even need pliers to work with these kinds of hooks.
And that’s it! This ghost earrings DIY is finished!
Check out other DIY Earrings Below
Everyday Earrings DIY
- Pinched Leather Earrings DIY (Narrow)
- Leather Hoops
- Leather Earrings with Chains
- Circle Cut Out Earrings with Strap
- Leather Bar Earrings DIY
- How to Emboss Leather Earrings
- DIY Angled Fringe Earrings
- Leather Circle Earrings
- DIY Fringe Leaf-Shaped Earrings
- Cross leather earrings
- FRI-YAY Leather Earring DIY
- Leather Bar Earrings DIY (with metal charm)
- How to Make Genuine Leather Earrings
- Statement Earrings
- Teardrop Cork Earrings
- Hollow Faux Leather Earrings – Teardrop and Leaf Shaped
- Faux Leather Tall Stacked Earrings
- Faux Leather Circle Earrings
- Split Teardrop Faux Leather Earrings
- Faux Leather Stacked Marquise Earrings
- Stacked, wavy earrings – KSU
- Faux leather leaf cutout earrings
- Faux Leather earrings with fringe
- Faux Leather Teardrop Earrings
- Faux Leather Bar Earrings
- Faux Leather Leaf Earrings
Sports Earrings
- Football Earrings – Teardrop with football cut out
- Stacked Football earrings
- Chiefs Football Teardrop Earrings
- Chiefs Heart Teardrop Earrings
- Chiefs Arrowhead Earrings
- Chiefs Arrowhead on Teardrop Earrings
My Favorite Leather
My Favorite Faux Leather Shops
Valentine’s Day Earrings
- 40 Great Valentine’s Day DIY Earrings
- LOVE Leather Earrings DIY
- Valentine’s Day earrings DIY (heart shape)
- Heart Earrings DIY (Iron On)
- Heart Earrings DIY (with heart cutout)
- DIY Valentine’s Day Earrings
St. Patrick’s Day Earrings
Easter Earrings
Halloween Earrings
- Boo Teardrop Halloween Earrings DIY
- Halloween Bat Earrings
- Halloween Pinched Leaf Earrings
- Halloween Faux Leather Earrings Skulls
- Halloween Faux Leather Earrings Pumpkins
- Halloween Leather Earrings Ghosts
Winter-themed Earrings
- Snowflake Cutout Teardrop Faux Leather Earrings
- Snowman Leather Iron On Earrings
- Buffalo Check Snowman Cutout Earrings
