We finally were able to get the three little boys to decide on a Halloween costume, after changing their minds about a thousand times each. Last night, after much debate, they all declared they want to be bats! I’m not sure if they are all aware that they are going to be bats and not “Batman” but I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We looked at lots of bat costume ideas and today we decided to do a Bat Craft to get them even more excited about their upcoming costumes. This DIY Halloween Felt Garland with spooky bats actually turned into a craft and a few different activities for them. I hope you enjoy this flying bat Halloween decoration.
Halloween Bat Garland Tutorial
Supplies:
- Black Felt
- Fabric Paint Pen
- Scissors
- Bat Template (I printed out several for coloring pages and grabbed some crayons too)
- Twine (or another type of string for your garland)
- Hot Glue and Glue Gun
I printed several copies of the free printable bat template below for coloring pages. I grabbed the boys’ favorite colors of crayons and let them color while I did the main part of the craft that we were going to use as a flying bat Halloween decoration.
How To Make Halloween Garland With Felt Bats
The bat template above can be saved and printed on regular printer paper. It gives you 3 different sizes of bats for your garland. I traced 4 of each size onto my black felt using a silver paint pen. I didn’t have a fabric pen on hand and a regular pen or marker would not show up against my black felt.
While I worked on tracing the bats onto the felt and cutting them out, the boys were happy coloring. This is perfect for them because at their ages their coloring skills are all still developing. Our littlest doesn’t care much about staying in the lines, the middle tries a little harder, and the oldest wanted to color each bat a different color and worked much harder to stay within the lines.
As I got the bats cut out, the coloring activity turned into a game of matching shapes and sizes. The boys each grabbed felt bats matched them up to the bats on their coloring pages. They had a lot of fun talking about the different sizes.
Even the littlest loved playing with the felt bats!
Once all the bats were cut out I began gluing them to my twine using the glue gun and hot glue to make a homemade bat garland. I like to use an old cookie sheet to protect my surface from the heat of the gun and the melting glue. This has saved my counters and tables!
To create the flying bat Halloween decoration, I started at one end and added two of each size bat until reaching the middle. Then I worked my way back out, repeating the pattern to create a mirror image. I didn’t let the boys help with gluing because it gets SO hot. However, I did let them help with choosing the right size bats for the pattern. They helped decide whether we needed a small, medium, or big next for our bat garland and it was a great learning activity!
Conclusion
Our Halloween Felt Garland is a fun DIY bat decoration. It will be perfect for the Halloween party we are having next weekend! I know we will love getting it out every fall for years to come! Do you think you will make an outdoor Halloween garland for your porch or doorway?
Your kids may also enjoy this paper plate bat craft as well!