Ghost pen holder: a cheerful free desk companion

A ghost pen holder started as a way to give a desk something small and friendly to look at while still doing a job, and this one holds your pen horizontally in its arms so it’s never rolling off the table again.

It wears a knitted beanie, which is really the detail that gives it personality. Without the beanie it would just be a blob with eyes; with it, the ghost pen holder reads as a little character that happens to also be furniture for your pencil cup. The eyes sit on the front, simple and round, and the whole shape stays compact enough to sit next to a keyboard without getting in the way.

Two ways to print the ghost pen holder

There are two versions of the file, and which one you pick depends on your printer, not your taste. The AMS version is a single multicolor part: you slice it, print it, and it comes off the plate ready to go, colors and all, provided you have a multicolor system set up.

The separated parts version is for anyone printing on a single-extruder machine. Here the ghost body, the beanie and the eyes are all separate STLs, so you print each one in whatever color you like and then assemble them with a small amount of superglue. It’s the same finished character either way, just a different route to get there.

Ghost pen holder as a desk accessory

The arms are shaped specifically to cradle a standard pen horizontally, which is what turns this from a decoration into something you’ll actually reach for. It sits naturally next to a monitor, on a school desk, or on an office shelf where a pen otherwise tends to wander off. As a Halloween gift it works too, since it doesn’t need batteries or paint to look finished, just whatever colors you choose for the beanie and eyes.

Because the beanie is a separate piece in one of the two versions, it’s easy to make a small family of these: different beanie colors, different eye colors, one ghost for every desk in the house. The description calls this building your own Ghost Buddy, and that’s really the appeal of the separated version over the single-color AMS print.

Where it sits in the Halloween Collection

This ghost pen holder belongs to the Halloween Collection, a set of seasonal desk pieces meant to be printed and used rather than boxed up after October. Its size and function put it closer to an everyday object than a display piece, which means it can stay out past the holiday without looking out of place.

If you’re new to multicolor printing, the separated parts version is the gentler starting point, since gluing three simple shapes together is more forgiving than getting a full AMS print to come out clean on the first try. If you already run a multicolor setup, the single-piece version saves you the assembly step entirely and gets you to a finished ghost pen holder faster.

Getting the files

The ghost pen holder is free to download on Thangs, Patreon and MakerWorld, with STL files for anyone slicing manually and ready-made 3MF files with print profiles for Bambu Lab printers. The profiles are set up to switch between the AMS version and the separated-parts version, so you’re not guessing at settings for either one. Commercial use requires a separate license, but printing one for your own desk or as a gift needs nothing more than picking a version and hitting print.