Beaded halloween pipe cleaner dolls

If you’re looking for a fun and simple Halloween craft, these little beaded pipe cleaner dolls are such a cute one to try! Using a large wooden bead for the head, pony beads for the body and colourful pipe cleaners, you can create all sorts of spooky characters. We made a skeleton and a little pumpkin man, but there are so many different Halloween designs you could come up with.

Once finished, your beaded characters can be turned into Halloween decorations, keyrings, bag charms or little trinkets to keep or give to friends. Threading the pony beads onto the pipe cleaners is also a lovely way for children to practise their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination while getting creative.

This craft can be enjoyed by a range of ages, although younger children may need a little adult help with the threading and shaping. Pipe cleaners can also have pointy wire ends, so be sure to take care and always supervise younger children while crafting.

Heres what we used

A large wooden bead
Pony beads colourful/transparent
Pipecleaners (we used small ones, but regular ones are fine too!)
Paint (orange and white for the faces)
A black marker pen

How to make our Beaded halloween pipe cleaner dolls

First we're going to start by taking a large wooden bead and decorating it to make the head of our character. For this one we decided to make a pumpkin person. We painted the bead orange, then once it was dry, we used a black pen to add the facial features.

Take a pipecleaner and cut it to roughly 15cm long. Twist a loop into one end of the stem as can be seen above. Thread your bead head onto the pipe cleaner and push it up to sit at the base of the loop. Thread 1-2 pony beads onto the pipecleaner to make the neck.

Now take another 15cm length of pipecleaner. Twist it around the body, just below the neck beads to make two little arms

Thread 3-4 more pony beads onto the body below the arms.

Now take another 15cm length of pipecleaner. Twist the pipecleaner onto the main stem, right below the body beads to create the legs. You should have a section of the body pipe cleaner left.

Twist the loose end of the body around the place where you joined the legs to fully secure the join.

Now, thread 4-5 pony beads onto one of the arms. You ll want to make sure you leave roughly 1cm of the end of the arm bare. Bend the end backwards and twist it into a loop to create a little hand. Then repeat this step with the other arm.