If you have never made a mosaic before, start here. A light box is a flat panel in a frame — no curves to fight, no awkward angles, and no grouting at all. If you can press a tile into glue, you can make this.
What you end up with is a small cream ghost floating on a drift of pink and plum beads, quiet and matte by day, and softly lit from behind the moment you switch it on.
How a light box works
Picture what you are building before you start. The mosaic goes onto a flat opaque white panel that sits inside a wooden frame, with an LED tucked in behind it. Switched off, the background simply reads as clean white. Switched on, the light pushes through the beads and the panel warms up from the inside.
That is also why there is no grouting in this project. On a curved mosaic lamp grout locks the pieces onto the globe, but here the pieces sit flat and the tiny gaps between them are doing a job — they let the light through. Fill them and you would lose the glow.
What you'll need
A short list, and most of it comes in the box:
• A square wooden light box frame with a white panel
• An LED light strip or puck light to sit behind the panel
• Flat cream or ivory glass mosaic tiles (for the ghost)
• A few small jet-black glass rectangles (for the face)
• Tiny pink and dark plum seed beads (for the background)
• Clear-drying craft adhesive
• A pencil, for tracing your outline
Using our DIY Mosaic Home Kit? The panel, mosaic pieces, beads and adhesive come in the box — just add your light.
How to make your Halloween ghost mosaic light box
Lay out your materials
Set the frame flat on the table with the white panel facing up, and sort your materials into dishes beside it: cream tiles in one, pink and plum beads in another, the few black rectangles somewhere safe.
Take a moment to look at the blank white panel and decide how big your ghost is going to be. A ghost that fills about half the height of the panel leaves enough background to glow around it, which is the proportion that works best.
Pencil the outline, then dry-arrange
Lightly pencil the ghost onto the white panel: a wide rounded dome for the head and shoulders, straight sides, and three or four rounded scallops along the bottom for the wavy hem.
Then dry-arrange cream tiles inside that outline without any glue, and shuffle them until the shape reads clearly from a few steps back. Keep it blocky — the stepped, pixel-like edge you get from square tiles is exactly what you want.
Glue the ghost's body
Happy with the shape? Lift the tiles and start gluing for real, working from the top of the dome downward. Press each cream tile down with a small, even gap to its neighbours.
Those gaps matter. When the light comes on they read as fine bright lines running through the ghost, and that is what gives it its stained-glass edge instead of looking like a solid cut-out.
Add the face
Three pieces of black glass and it comes alive. Two small upright rectangles for the eyes, set wide apart and high on the dome, and one wider rectangle centred below them for the open mouth.
Set the eyes generously apart and drop the mouth well below them. Close-set eyes make a ghost look cross; wide-set eyes give you that blank, startled look that is the whole point of the design.
Start the background at one corner
Now the colour. Spread a thin layer of adhesive over a small area — a bottom corner is the easiest place to begin — and pour your pink and plum seed beads onto it, pressing them down so they sit shoulder to shoulder.
Work in small patches. If you glue too large an area at once it skins over before the beads reach it, and you get a thin patchy stretch you will have to go back and fix.
Work outward and hug the silhouette
Keep spreading outward across the panel, and slow down when you reach the ghost. Push the beads right up against the edges of the cream tiles — into the scallops of the hem, along the shoulders, under the chin.
Tight beadwork around the outline is what keeps the ghost crisp once the light is behind it. A loose, gappy border will blur the shape the moment you switch it on.
Pack it tight — fill every gap
Carry the beads all the way to the inner edge of the frame, right into the corners. Any bare white you leave will read as a pale blank patch once the light goes on, so go back and top up the thin spots while the adhesive is still workable.
Dense, even coverage is the whole secret to a warm glow instead of a patchy one. And that is the last building step — remember, this piece never gets grouted.
Cure it, then light it up
Let the adhesive cure fully — overnight is safest — so nothing shifts when you move the panel. Then fit the frame back together with your LED behind it, turn off the room lights, and switch it on.
The pink ground warms up, the plum beads go deep and jewel-like, and the little cream ghost sits in the middle of it looking politely surprised. Every October, back out of the box it comes.
Pro tips: Keep the hem scallops rounded and even — a ragged bottom edge is the giveaway on a rushed ghost. Work the beads in small sections so the adhesive never skins over. And use thin layers of glue: less dries clearer and holds just as well.
Keep it flameless. Light your finished panel with an LED strip or puck light rather than a candle. It is the safe choice around adhesive and glass, and it gives a steadier, more even glow across the whole background.
Make it your own
The ghost is the friendliest starting point, but the method is identical whatever you put in the middle. Swap the pink ground for amber and you have the black cat light box. Swap it for orange and lay a jagged face instead and you have the jack-o'-lantern. A bat, a crescent moon, a witch's hat — once you have built one light box, you own the technique for every one after it.
Want the curved version instead? The ghost mosaic globe lamp uses the same face on a round lamp globe — and that one does get grouted.
Ready to make your own?
Grab a kit and build your glowing ghost at home, or join us at a studio or pop-up and we will guide you through every step.
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