Bat-tastic Branches

With Hallowe'en fast approaching, I took inspiration from this photo seen in one of the many home magazines I read each month. I feel awful for not being able to properly give credit for it, but it's from one of several possibles including, but not limited to, Country Living, Period Homes, Country Homes and Interiors, coast, Martha Stewart Living, etc, etc.

Adamant that this should be a no-cost bit of Hallowe'en crafting, I hunted high and low for some black card in the house - even going so far as to rifle through the recycling bin, but to no avail. However, in one of the many boxes/crates that I keep my crafting tat in, I did find some black tissue paper, so that had to do.

I sat down to draw a bat shape and my mind went blank, so I pulled out my copy of Martha Stewart's Hallowe'en book and used this template

 with a slight amendment.

Then I folded the paper concertina-style, drew round the first bat and cut out the shape; lo and behold: more bats. They're all a bit odd looking, but odd looking is what Hallowe'en is all about, non?

Then I glued a piece of black cotton to the back of one of the bats and hung him on a branch. And that was a total disaster; the cotton/tissue paper weight imbalance was too much and the bat was left hanging horizontally. Time for a rethink. Clearly the bat's body needed some extra weight to keep it vertical. Another look in the recycling bin and I found the perfect bat body material:

Cut out a basic bat body shape, affix cotton to one side

affix body to bat.

Et voila; success!

Hang all bats from branches and invite small child to 'blow' so that the bats flutter around.

Instead, he decided to give one a kiss (or perhaps wipe his snotty nose on it.)

Ta-daaaah. Bat-tastic branches with bats that flutter in the breeze.