Make Paper Bats For Lamp Shades, step by step

Last week’s Halloween lively did not end with that post. In fact we had a few more straightforward (and low-cost!) ideas up our sleeves so we are back to share the goods. First we took another little Martha Stewart trick and brought in black bat silhouettes to the insides of our living room lamps:

And it was truly straightforward. Here is how we did it in under ten minutes using stuff we already had around the house (total cost: $0.00). First I sketched out bat shapes (inspired by a swift google search) on small white pieces of paper (pointer: it helps to cut the paper into rectangles that are about the size that you want your wrapped up bats to be simply keep you on track):

Then I cut those sketches out and created little white stencils that I could trace (with a pencil) onto black construction paper (black cardstock also works if you have that laying around). After they are traced you simply cut them out and you are left with excellent little bat shaped pieces of paper (feel free to print this photo out, blow it up and use it as a stencil if you’d like the same bat shapes that we sketched):

We especially like that we got three bat shapes for the time that it took to make two since the one bat that is flying to the left can be flipped over to look like he’s also flying to the right, simply to keep things looking a little less formulaic.

Then we simply used two loops of scotch tape (one on each wing) to stick each one of them inside the two lamp shades in our living room for a bit of eerie ambiance when the lights are on (of course the obligatory warning here is to make sure they are firmly in place and nowhere near the hot bulb so they do not start a fire; CFL bulbs burn a lot cooler so they are a pleasant bit of brought in insurance). Oh and we wondered if you’d see the tape through the shade but you truly do not- simply the silhouette of each bat. It is a especially polished look for not much effort. Gotta enjoy that.

And the funny thing is that when the lights are off our linen shades make the bats fully invisible, so they look fairly run of the mill…

… until you switch them on for some Halloween lively. We cannot wait to have them glowing in our front window when trick-or-treaters approach on the 31st. It is like a modern take on carving a pumpkin (do not worry, we did that too and we will share those pics in a bit…). And adding an orange bulb would be the icing on the cake (our shades simply happen to cast a yellowy-orange glow as-is).

And of course we had to decorate my beloved concrete greyhound for the occasion too. We used an old necklace I already had laying around for a bit of a dark chain-y look around his neck along with some ever-so-thin spiderwebs (leftover from the porch spookifying project that we have yet to share).

Straightforward and free! The only downside is that we think Burger’s a little jealous at all the attention we paid to the faux dog in the house, so of course we have a costume for him too. Stay tuned for that along with our spooky little porch project and some pumpkin carving pics coming soon. And speaking of soon, we are going to blink our eyes and it’ll be Christmas so Halloween truly is right around the corner. Anyone have any lively costume ideas (for themselves or their dogs)? Any pumpkin carving or porch spookifying projects in the hopper? Do tell.