For this, our second installment of Halloweek, I thought it might be fun to make a fuzzy, batty little friend to hang in your window, or to keep you company on your desk.
You will need:
- Brown, black, or gray yarn, or other color of your choice. There are no rules against a purple bat. Especially if you’re going to Prince’s house for Halloween. (I used worsted weight here, but it really doesn’t matter what thickness you have)
- Scrap cardboard (poster board, cereal box, sturdy junk mail postcards, etc)
- Templates for pom-pom maker, wings, and bow (see below) or you can eyeball this and do it freehand
- 1 felt sheet (in the kids’ crafts section of the craft store) in a coordinating color to make the wings; If you don’t have felt, construction paper/cardstock/foam, or the like, ought to work too
- Scissors
- Googly eyes (or black and white paper or felt), or black beads so that our little blind creature can “see”
- Glue (anything that works with fabric or fiber will work; Tacky glue’s a good all-purpose choice)
- optional**: Red/pink/etc felt sheet (or paper) to make a bow (so that your bat can be a lady)
- optional**: Metal bristle brush/pet slicker brush to make your pom-pom extra fuzzy
- If you like, print out the above templates. Cut 2 pom-pom templates from your scrap cardboard. You don’t really need a template to make a pom-pom maker, or any of the other bat components, but I wanted to offer the option of making a bat the same shape/size of everything as I did.
- Please watch this woman’s excellent tutorial on making a pom-pom, and using a metal-bristle brush to make it fuzzy. As you can see from her video, it is not essential that you have a pom-pom maker template
- NOTE: When you are tying the central yarn around your pom-pom to keep all of the strands together, make sure you’ve got a lot of excess yarn to work with, and don’t cut off the excess once you have tied your knots. This will be your hanging string so that you can display your friend more easily when you are finished
- If you like, brush the pom pom with a metal bristle brush to make the yarn extra fuzzy; The tutorial video shows a brush from a home improvement store, but a pet store will also have a “pet slicker” brush on the pet grooming aisle, if you don’t already have one in your home.
- Now, either using a freehand technique (or the above templates) cut out some wings for your bat friend, using either felt or paper
- Smear a little glue on either side of one of your wings, close to where it will connect to the body. Choose a spot near the top of your pom pom to attach your wing. Push a few strands of yarn out of the way, bury your wing into the yarn threads, and squeeze some yarn threads into the glue that you have placed on the wing. Hold for a few seconds to secure your wing to your bat’s body. Repeat on the other side
- Now choose where you would like to attach your eyes; I used googly eyes, but you may choose to use black and white felt or paper, whatever you have on hand; Place glue on the back of the eyes, wait until it gets slightly tacky, and then glue the eyes to the bat’s body. It helps if you press some threads of yarn into the glue on the back of the eye, and hold for a few seconds to secure.
- If you like, now you can make the bow. You can freehand this, or use the template provided above. Glue the bow to your bat in an appropriate and fashionable location, and there you go, all done!
Variations: 1) If you’re feeling extra ambitious, you could probably reduce the size of this project, make 2 matching bats, and have a pair of earrings! You can always add little jingle bells to the bottom of the earrings too; 2) You could make a bat family, perhaps a Mommy bat and a few smaller baby bats. Each member of your family can have a little fuzzy equivalent of themselves to display in a favorite location; 3) Try adding hats or other accessories to your new little friend. Perhaps your bat needs a Trick or Treat bag to carry his or her Halloween goodies? 4) If your bat needs some bling, try giving him or her a necklace made of glitter glue; you could also use glitter glue to draw a nice bat-wing-y pattern on the bat’s wings; 5) There are all sorts of googly eyes on the market; Some glow in the dark, others even come with some false eyelashes painted on. Why not have a glamorous bat diva to celebrate Halloween with? 6) If you’d rather just buy your pom-pom ready-made and embellish it to make it “battified,” no harm in that! The craft stores may have variety packs of pom-poms in the kids’ section
Hope you’ve all been enjoying the week so far, and talk to you again soon!