How to Make Spooky Hanging Bats With Paper

On Halloween, welcome trick-or-treaters in hair-raising style by turning your front porch into a bat cave. Best of all, these high-impact paper decorations are simple to make with our printable template.

paper-bats-1011mld106852.jpg

As you get your porch ready for Halloween—and this year's horde of trick-or-treaters—you might be searching for an easy way to up your entryway's spooky factor. Enter this Halloween craft: These paper bat cut-outs, which are simple to make thanks to our printable template, will transform the front of your house into a bat cave.

Creating these creatures of the night is straightforward, but get creative when you suspend them from your porch's rafters. Hang your bats in different orientations (make sure a few sleepy critters are upside-down) and enlist twine or string to ensure a few hang down from the ceiling—bats are scariest when they're mid-flight, after all.

What You'll Need

Materials

  • Half-bat template
  • Thick black paper
  • Scissors
  • Bone folder
  • Painters' tape or removable hooks

Instructions

  1. paper-bats-how-to-1011mld107603_vert

    Print our half-bat template; then fold a piece of thick black paper down the middle, place the template on the fold, and trace. Cut out, and unfold. Use a bone folder to crease wings (and fold opposite the direction of body fold).

  2. Poke holes in the bat for monofilament: in the tail for an upside-down bat, in the wings and head for one that's right side up. Hang from ceiling with painters' tape or removable hooks.

Originally appeared: MARTHA STEWART

Related Articles