Felt Halloween Decorations

A bat silhouette is a spooky harbinger of Halloween.

Go batty this Halloween with a swoop of black bats across your front door and a colony of bats hovering from the chandelier. Bats are so simple to make and station around the house that you can enlist the help of the young witches and warlocks on the premises to trace and cut the felt and stick the bats in place.

Things You'll Need

• Cardboard
• Pencil
• Tracing paper (optional)
• Copier (optional)
• Sheets of black felt
• White chalk
• Scissors
• Double-stick tape
• Thin, bendable wire
• Wire snippers
• Clear monofilament
• Nail (optional)
• Hole punch (optional)
• Craft glue

Instructions

1. Create a bat wing template by drawing the outline of a single wing on a piece of cardboard and cutting it out. Copy or trace a bat wing from a photograph or drawing. Enlarge it on a copier, if necessary, to get the size or sizes you need. Make a 6-inch wing and an 8-inch wing.

2. Fold a sheet of stiffened black felt from a craft supply store in half. Position the template with the flat end of the wing on the fold. Trace around the shape with white chalk.

3. Cut out the shape and unfold the felt to make a bat. Cut a dozen or more, some in each size, for your front door. Stick the bats on the door frame and across the door on an angle. Begin with the smaller bats at the low end of the angle and curve the flight of bats upward as it moves across the door to the opposite door frame. Use double-stick tape to attach the bats.

4. Cut two of each size bat for every bat to hang from your chandelier. Make the chandelier bat colony by snipping a piece of wire about six inches long and bending it slightly in the middle. Tie a piece of monofilament to the bend in the wire. Snip and tie one wire for each bat.

5. Poke a hole in the middle of a felt bat shape with a nail, hole punch or scissors. Pull the monofilament through the hole. Attach the wire to the underside of the bat shape with double-stick tape. Glue a second bat shape to the underside of the wired bat. Do this for all the chandelier bats and let each bat dry.

6. Tie the monofilament strings to the chandelier, suspending the bats at varied lengths over a spooky Halloween party table.

Tips & Warnings

• Felt bats add a suitably spooky note to a costume -- glue or stitch one or more on a shoulder or a witch's hat.

• Let bats alight on your porch or party jack-o-lantern. Make sure they don't fly off by fastening them with a piece of double-stick tape.

References

• “Country Living Magazine”; Homemade Halloween Decorations; slide 9