Bat Garland

Just in time for Halloween I’m dropping in to share this bat garland I made.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Target and saw the above brilliant bat chandelier. It was only $15, but I’m trying to spend money wisely and thought I could probably make something just as awesome for a fraction of the cost. Fast forward 2 weeks, and mere hours before Halloween and I finally finished my “cheap” replacement. (Cheap is in quotes because if time is money, this garland is worth a FORTUNE.)

I think the original chandelier was made with black paper, and double plyed and wings spread, thus giving the mobile more “action”. I wanted to use a material that would be more lasting, so I bought firm/rigid black acrylic felt. If it had been paper, it would have taken a fraction of the time, because I could have cut multiple piece at once. Later one I realized I should have looked in the scrapbooking paper section for some flocked black paper. I drew out a template on scrap paper and used a white colored pencil to trace out each bat on the felt. Sometimes I winged it, badumbum, and went free style to make bigger or smaller bats, and bats in different stages of flight. I purchased 4 sheets of 9×12″ felt at $1.19 each and spent evenings watching Penny Dreadful season 1 tracing and cutting bats.

I even had some fun playing with the lovely negative cut-aways.

I used two lengths of Halloween ribbon as the base of the garland, and hung each bat from some black string, and voila, it was enough to go back and forth and back again in our foyer and looks lovely against our ikea chandelier, through the transom window, and should delight trick or treaters as they approach the house tomorrow.

And just for the holiday’s sake, here is our annual pumpkin tree.

And the gif I made of the same tree in 2013, taking a picture every single day while the colors changed and dropped its leaves. Our pumpkin collection has grown quite a bit since then.

Happy Halloween!