Katie's Nesting Spot: A "Handy" Hanging Bat

For our last Halloween craft this year, we whipped up this sweet cubby little bat. Can you tell by the hair bows at the ears and the pink mouth, it's a girl? No bat in the belfry 'round here, she's been hanging out around our kitchen chandelier instead. That way she can keep an eye on things and be where all the action is.

To make the wings, I incorporated one of my favorite things. You got it, handprints...sort of! This time I traced both of ER's little four year old hands onto craft foam. I positioned them so I could connect them and cut out as one piece.

Then it was time to prepare the body. It's a bit of a "green" craft because instead of starting with a black tube sock, I used a sleeve from an old sweater of mine. It was put into the drier, and while it didn't felt, it did get quite a few pills and shrunk to an unflattering fit. Note: a tube sock probably would've given us a better shape but I liked the idea of repurposing.

I chopped off about six inches from one sleeve and rounded the top.

Turned it inside out and did a quick bit of messy stitching with some embroidery thread to close it up.

Then came ER's favorite part, stuffing it all up with fiberfill. I pinched off each side of the sewed up rounded edge to make "ears", and put a few stitches in to hold their shape. The ribbon bows are not only cute, but also hid the threads.

Felt was used for the white part of the eyes and mouth. I stitched on the felt and button eyes as well as the foam wings on the back. The pink felt mouth and felt teeth were added with fabric glue. I'm going to add 2010 on the backside of the wings so that years from now, we'll know that it was ER's preschool little hands that are commemorated in foam:)