On the Third Day Before Halloween….

…our house was swarmed by bats.

The idea of using flying bats as Halloween decor also came from Martha Stewart.  Although, I altered the directions for this project to better fit my time restrictions.  Sometimes Martha takes the long route.

Here is Martha’s batty lamp.  I thought everything about this picture was so cute for Halloween.

  

You can follow Martha’s directions for her shivering bats by clicking here.  I found her process a little too time consuming.  If you are short on time, you can follow my directions found in this post.

The template I used for my little bats was the result of a Google image search for a black bat.  (My batty lamps are below.)  I chose the bat found in the template below because it had a simple shape that was easy to cut out.  I just right clicked the picture, saved it, and printed as many as I needed to fill all sides of each shade. (Pardon the poor photography on my part.  I snapped these on my way out the door with Judd’s iphone.  There was no time for staging or editing.  You still kind of get the idea right?)

Click here for Martha’s template.

Click here for the bat template I used.

The materials you will need to make the bats my way are found below:

• Computer
• Printer
• Scissors
• Tape
• Plain white printer paper

Martha’s instructions suggest you use her template, trace the bats on to black paper, cut them out, and hang them from wire inside the shade. 

My directions are simple.  Use the template for the easy to cut out bat shape I provided above or search for an image you like better.   Make sure the bat image you choose is already filled in with black.  That way, you can use your regular white printer paper and you can save yourself a step of having to trace the template onto black paper.   Who has time for that?  Not me.  :)

Once you have printed the number of bats that you need, stack several sheets of bat printed paper up to cut out multiple bats at one time. 

When all the bats have been cut out, use one small piece of clear tape for each bat.  Put the tape at the top of each bats’ head with the sticky side of the tape on the white side of your paper.  Place the tape where half of the piece is on the bat and the other half is sticking up above the bat’s head.  Make sure your lamp is off and that the bulb is cool so that you do not burn yourself.  Adhere each bat inside your shade using the part of the tape that is sticking up above the head making sure that the black side of the bats are facing outward.

Finally, turn on your lamp and see the spooky shade you have created. 

I also put bats in our dining room chandelier.  I think they look spooktacular!