Happy Halloween! It’s a bit late to get these bats up for this year, but you can use the same method for leaves or snowflakes or other shapes for the upcoming holidays!
It all started with a cute Martha Stewart idea — bats that magically unfold into a garland (because of the accordion folds in a stack of tissue paper). Unfortunately, Martha doesn’t provide a template for the project (um, what if I don’t have a bat-shaped cookie cutter?!). The next roadblock came when I opened my package of tissue paper — it was indeed folded, but rather than perfect, equal rectangles, the paper was staggered. Where does Martha get her paper? I guess she probably makes her own.
I decided to scrap Martha’s method and instead make strings of three bats vertically on the tissue paper. This way I could cut out many strings of bats simultaneously without dealing with the messy folds. Once cut out, I attached the strings of bats end to end to make them into garlands. It was a bit time consuming, but at least it worked!
Supplies:
Black tissue paper
White pencil (a regular pencil will work, but be harder to see)
Clear tape
Scissor with a sharp point
1. Download, print and cut out bat template.
2. Trace the bats onto a stack of tissue paper in the desired arrangement, overlapping the wings a bit. (I made a string of three bats with the large bat flanked by two smaller bats.)
3. Cut out the tissue-paper bats, being careful to keep all the sheets of tissue paper aligned.
4. Join the strings of bats end to end with a small piece of clear tape.
5. Hang.
Enjoy them and the eerie shadows they cast!
