Bat Garland

Happy Halloween, everybody! Last night I was sort of lamenting the fact that we didn't have a lot of Halloween decorations up. We did buy lots of pumpkins this year and orange mums, which are cute and festive, but we didn't have anything spooky or creepy (unless you count real spiders, haha).

So last night, I started rummaging around my studio and found some black paper, and voila! I knew it was destined to be made into a bat garland.

I drew some simple bat shapes on white printer paper, then cut those out to use as a guide to trace on to the black paper. Then all I had to do was cut out my bats and string them together. I used some nylon thread I had for some reason and washi tape to hang my garland. I actually thought about making a pdf template of my bats if anyone wanted to use them, but it occurred to me that no one else probably waits until the night before to make decorations. ;)

I used an embroidery needle to string the bats together and also made two holes with the needle for eyes.

I made 5 large bats, and 4 small bats to make a good size for my window, but you could obviously make as many or few as you like.

All in all, I'd say it took me about an hour from start to finish, and the cost was nothing since I already had all the materials. I also put a jack-o-lantern in the window, which you can't see here, and a couple of black lanterns, as well as the white mini pumpkins that were already there. It definitely feels more Halloween appropriate now.

Did anyone else make last-minute Halloween decorations?