Happy Felt Bats

With some thick wool felt and your own Halloween sewing patterns, you can make the most bat-tastic Halloween decorations. Make these felt bats as finger puppets or candybottle toppers. Go batty this Halloween!

Materials:

• Thick Wool Felt
• Cardboard
• Chalk Pencil
• Sewing Machine and/or needle & thread
• Small Buttons for Eyes
• Scissors

Instructions:

Cut yourself a little cardboard template. It's basically a triangle with a U cut out of the apex to make ears. Mine is about 8 inches across and 4 inches high.

Trace round your template and draw in some guide lines for the wing markings, eye placement, mouth and fangs. I use a chalk pencil for this (you don't need precision).

Don't cut anything yet. Add the markings on a single layer of the felt - I used the sewing machine for the wings but stitched the buttons on by hand and added a backstitch mouth with red floss and white for the fangs. But please yourself.

Now, fold your felt so you have a double layer and zig zag around the edge. Don't forget to leave a gap in the middle. My gap is large enough for 2 grown-up digits or the neck of a wine bottle.

Now using a nice sharp pair of scissors, trim close to the zig zag line. And lo, your flappy happy is born.

Trick or treat!