Today I'm going to teach you how to make a super simple Halloween decoration. Bats hanging from the ceiling, more or less. It's easy and a cool decoration. Plus you can easily involve the kids.
In order to do this project you need very few things. Cut outs of bats, thread or fishing line, scissors, a hole punch of some kind, and a place to hang things.
I used the bats that I had originally used for my Halloween Banner. I had a selection of them on my computer, so I just cut out a random sampling using my Pazzle. You could also trace and cut a stencil or just cut print outs. I used a total of 16 bats, some big some smaller.
I was originally going to string them using fishing line. However, the fishing line I have on hand is a 60 lb. test weight and refused to hang straight with such little weight attached. So...I went with regular sewing thread instead.
I measured out random lengths of thread anywhere from about 16 inches to a little over a yard. That way my bats wouldn't all be hanging at the same level. I chose the bats randomly so that there wasn't some obvious pattern.
I threaded the bats by punching small holes in the wings and attaching my thread. I quickly learned that there is a right way and a wrong way to string bats. In order to keep them from tilting too far sideways or flat out flying upside down, you have to balance out the weight. I did this by attaching the thread in an upside down "Y" pattern to each outer wing edge. It required a little more thread, but they seem to stay where I want them. I did string some slightly off kilter just to make it a bit more realistic.
Once they were all strung, I busted out the ladder and climbed up to our chandelier. I hung the bats at random on the bottoms of the sconces. I attached them by tying a loop at the end of the thread that would easily slide over. That way I won't have to restring them next year. I did have to adjust a couple because they wound up being too close to the same height. But overall, easy.
Collin thinks they look pretty cool. It's pretty obvious that they're strung with thread in the daylight, but when you walk up our front sidewalk t night, they shine through the window pretty awesomely. They really can look like they're flying around.
I will say though...they are really difficult to get a good picture of. I wanted to give you guys and idea of what they look like in the dark. I had a super fun time messing around with shutter speeds on my camera. It's been a while...I'm a little rusty. But hopefully these turned out okay.
And that's that. Now I have my very own "bat mobile" hanging from my foyer chandelier.
This post is part of a series. To read the other posts on Creative Crafting, click here.
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