Looking Back: Last year is sooo last year!

I am working on something big. I mean big! I mean really big!!!

As a result of said "big-ness" I haven't even decorated for Halloween.

"What?!?!?!", you say? Yeah, you heard me correctly. My "big" thing takes precedence. Once you see it(Hopefully next week. Fingers are duly crossed), you'll realize why I didn't want to drag out the same old decorations we've been using for more than a decade. To make my blog feel more festive I am posting last year's craft. Boy my kids have grown in just a year. Makes me a little sad. But I'll get over it when I finish my "big" project!

So excited!!!

Waaaay back in 1999 I was a different mother.I had two little girls that I vowed to do crafts with EVERYDAY!!! For Halloween That year we made bats out of toilet paper rolls (I had learned of the craft when I had been a preschool teacher with Phx. Parks and Rec).
I love those little bats. Every year I hang them up. Two for Hallie and two for Hannah. My other kids, okay, namely Grace, because let's face it, Zane is still clueless when it comes to this kind of stuff, has asked countless times to make bats of her own that will be immortalized by being hung every Halloween.
This past Saturday I finally relented. I declared it "Bat Making Day", errr, "Bat Making Afternoon", okay, "Bat Making Hour!!!" Hooray!
Here is a tutorial for you. Feel free to make any changes to any step. Grace did.

What you need: 1 toilet paper roll per bat (we made 6 bats: that's about 10 minutes worth of toilet paper in this house)

black paint (tip: squirt a little dish soap in you paint and mix it up to make your paint washable)

glue (tip: glue sticks don't work so good. Good ole Elmer's did the trick)

scissors

black card stock or construction paper

stapler

white paper (to cut out eyes) or googly eyes (couldn't find ours)

Step 1: paint the toilet paper rolls completely. Let dry.
Step 2: Cut out wings from black paper. I cut out one large set of wings but Grace preferred to cut out 2 separate wings. Personally I think 1 large wing is better. Don't tell Grace I said that.)

Step 3: Gently press one side of dried toilet paper roll together and cut out a notch on top to make the ears (see picture above), be careful not to fully make a crease in the roll.

Step 4: Press the bottom together and cut out a half-moon shape. It's okay if you make a crease in the roll here. You'll see why.
Step 5: Staple the bottom together to create the lower half of the body and the feet. (P.S. that's why the crease didn't matter here. Re-cap: Crease on top=bad. Crease on bottom=okay.) Okay? Okay.

Step 6: Glue wings to back of body. Zane originally opted for the glue stick and it didn't work. So we used Elmer's instead.
Step 7: Wow. This is alot of steps. Don't worry, we're almost done. Make the eyes with the white paper, or glue on cute googly eyes (Where the heck did I put those?)

Step 8: Take a picture of your little monsters and their creations.

We hung ours with string in the doorway. Hang yours wherever the heck you want to. In the picture below you can see one of the originals from 1999, with upside-down wings and all. Hey, I had to let 4 year old Hallie do some part of it on her own. It's stuck to the wall right next to the pumpkin picture from 2006 and Scarecrow from 2004. Yes, I hang out the same old stuff every year, adding as we go. The kids love seeing their old stuff that they made way back when.



You know, the good ole days.



And sometimes I catch a glimpse of the mom I used to be.





Happy Wednesday!