Bat Bouquet

Nothing says spooky like a cloud of bats. So if you're looking for simple Halloween decorations to scare up your house this creepy season, the bat bouquet is for you!

black construction paper
one piece of 11 x 17 black construction paper
tall glass jar or large tin can
1-2 cups rice
print out of bat stencils (see pdf file attached to this step)
1-2 bunches of curly willow*
scissors
clear tape
glue gun & glue sticks
chalk or chalk pencil

*most flower shops will have this in stock

Fill your container 1/3 up with rice.

Snap the ends of the curly willow off so that the length sticking up above the top of your container is 24". (So 24" PLUS the height of your jar or can.)

Arrange them in the container so that you create a nice even 'cloud' or 'tree' of curly willow. You may have to break off individual branches to fill in empty spaces.

Hold the 11x17" black construction paper piece up against your container lengthwise.

With your thumb, measure about 1" above the top of your container. Fold the remaining amount of paper down, like pictured. This will be the top edge of your wrap.

Wrap the paper around the container so that the top is even and use tape to secure the end edge in place.

NOTE: I built my Bat Bouquet to go up against a wall, so I wasn't worried about the visible tape in the back. If you plan on putting this on a table, either use double sided tape and place it on the underside of the edge, or make little rolls out of the regular tape to use as double sided tape.

Use scissors to cut out one set of the four bat stencils. (Cut out two sets if you have helpers.)

Cut a piece of black construction paper that is twice as wide as the smallest bat half. Fold the paper in half lengthwise. Then fold it in half again, and then into thirds, like pictured.

Place the smallest bat half* so that the flat side of the bat is lined up with the first folded edge of the black paper. You want to make sure that when you cut the stencil out, you end up with whole bats once unfolded.

Use this technique to cut out 6-10 x-small, 5-8 small, 4-7 medium, and 4-5 large bats.

*The reason there are 4 sizes of bats is so that you can create some depth of field and make the bat cloud look more realistic = the smaller ones will look farther away and the largest ones, closest.

Use a dab of hot glue on the back of each bat to attach them to the curly willows.

I started in the back with the x-small ones and worked my way to the front, making the bats bigger as I went until I had a visually pleasing, evenly spaced bat bouquet!

Add this to a side table display of pumpkins or slide it in next to a Pumpkin Drink Cooler at your Halloween dance party! For an even cooler effect, place a fan to blow on the bats so that it looks like they're flying! Oooooohh,

Have a spooky one y'all! And make sure that if you try making this instructable, that you add a picture to the comments section. I'd love to see how you make it your own!