Halloween Decorating: Pumpkin Head Bat Tassels
It’s October… which means Halloween decorating season has arrived. Time to make Halloween party decorations or Halloween crafts to decorate your home.
When my daughters were little, I used to decorate the house for Halloween, but always with cute ghosts and goblins, never anything scary.
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I am not into scary… AT ALL !!! You will never find me watching a scary horror flick, or touring haunted houses… like never!
So when I received my surprise box of crafting goodies from Waverly Inspirations this month and saw the contents along with the Halloween decorating theme, I knew what I would make… something cute and not scary to add a little bit of Halloween around the house.
As you may remember, every month I receive a surprise box of crafting goodies from Waverly Inspirations to make something creative. The challenge is to use as as many of the items in the box as possible.
In the photo above is what was in my box. Solid color fabrics, paint, and black and silver ribbons.
I didn’t use every item, but did use 3 of the fabrics, the black ribbon, and the paint in the colors Ink and White to create a few cute pumpkin head bat tassels to fly around the house.
They were pretty easy to make with NO SEWING involved.
Halloween Decorating: How to Make Cute Pumpkin Head Bat Tassels
supplies needed to make one bat tassel: All supplies can be purchased at Walmart
- 1/4 yard each of black, lime, and purple Waverly Inspirations fabric
- Waverly Inspirations Super Premium Semi-Gloss paint in the colors Ink and White
- 30-inch piece of Waverly Inspirations 1/2″-wide ribbon in Glitter Black
- 1 black wooden bead with large hole
- Small foam pumpkin
- Awl or Rotary drill with carving drill bit
- 1-inch wide paint brush and a small tipped paint brush
- Black card stock or foam sheet
- Bat wing template – download here
- Scissors
- Craft knife
- Pencil
- Optional: scrap piece of Styrofoam to hold pumpkins when painting
- Using a 1-inch wide paint brush, paint the foam pumpkin using Waverly Inspirations Super Premium semi-gloss paint in the color, Ink. Apply two coats, allowing the first to dry before applying the second.
TIP: To make painting the pumpkins easier, use a piece of scrap Styrofoam from the packaging in items you buy. It works great to use as a place to push the stem of the pumpkin in so you can paint all around it at once and then let it dry.
2. Once paint is dry, remove stem from pumpkin and drill a hole into and through the pumpkin. If you don’t have a rotary tool with a carving bit, an awl or pointy object will work just as well to create a hole.
3. The hole needs to go all the way through the center of the pumpkin from top to bottom. Use a skewer to help clean out little pieces of foam to create an open path where the ribbon will be threaded through to make the tassel.
4. I couldn’t find black beads with large holes, so I ended up painting wood beads using the color, Ink.
TIP: Thread beads on a skewer and use Styrofoam scraps to hold it up to make painting the beads easy.
5. Cut a length of ribbon to 24 inches. Fold in half and then thread bead onto ribbon as shown above.
6. Thread bottom ends of ribbon through top of painted pumpkin. If needed, use a wooden skewer to help you push the ribbon through.
Set this part of the tassel aside for now.
How to Rip Fabric into Strips
To achieve a more “haunted look” for the tassels, instead of cutting the fabric into strips, I ripped it so all the raw edges would add to the “Halloween” feel of the bats.
1. + 2. Using a pair of scissors, make one inch cuts along the non-selvage edge of the fabric.
3. Hold the end of the main body of the fabric as you pull up one of the cut ends as you rip it away from the main body of the fabric. The ripping process goes very quickly since the cuts along the edge are what make the strips rip evenly. If you don’t start with a cut, the fabric will not rip into straight strips.
4. A pile of ripped fabric strips.
5. Once you have enough ripped fabric strips, tie them tightly together in the center with 6-inches of the black ribbon.
How to Attach the Ribbon to the Pumpkin Head
- Tie the ends of the ribbon on the pumpkin head around the center of the fabric strips.
- Tie the ribbon into a secure knot at the ends. You do not want to tie the knot higher up on the ribbon because you need to allow for the loop of the ribbon to slide up through the pumpkin.
- Pull the loop of the ribbon up through the pumpkin until the fabric strips are against the bottom of the pumpkin. Push the bead down onto the top of the pumpkin to create the tassel.
- Fluff fabric strips and trim ends if necessary to make them even.
How To Make and Attach Bat Wings
- Download batwing template to cut out and trace or draw your own onto black card stock or a sheet of black foam. Optional: The card stock I used was lighter in color and I wanted it to be the same color as the black pumpkin, so I painted the card stock with the Ink paint and let them dry.
2. Cut two 1″- long slits on each side of the pumpkin. Wedge end of bat wings into the slits so the wings angle up.
How to Paint the Faces on the Pumpkin Heads
If you are not good at drawing cute faces, download the template with the faces to copy: Bat Faces
- Cut the faces out.
- On the back side of the face cut-outs, go over where you can see the black lines of the face with white chalk. Turn the image over to place the chalk side down on the center of the pumpkin. Using a pencil, trace over the lines of the face. The pressure of the pencil tip will transfer the chalk lines on the back of the image to the pumpkin.
- Using a fine tipped paint brush and white paint, paint over the chalk lines to create your happy smiling pumpkin bat faces. Let dry.
Hang in your yard, on doorknobs, light fixtures, or anywhere you would hang a tassel.
Click here to download the .pdf to use as templates to make your own pumpkin head bat tassels.
If you like cute bats and Halloween decorating ideas… click over to see my top pinned post showing how to make Bat Branches. You can find the post here: Fall Home Tour
Do you like to decorate for Halloween…do you go for cute or scary?
For more creative and crafty ideas head over to Tip Junkie
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