Spooky Bat Tree

I think we are close enough to October that it’s okay to start putting up the Halloween decor! I’ve never been too into Halloween, which is weird because I heart everything else that has to do with fall. I think the pressure of coming up with a good costume idea year after year got to me. But now that I have kids Halloween is fun again!

I don’t have a fireplace, so I don’t have a mantel to go all “decorating crazy” on like a lot of other people. So instead, I use this awesome mid-century credenza as the focal point of my living room. It’s actually better than a mantel, since I have more surface space.

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The “tree” was made by gathering a bunch of branches from the backyard. I spray painted the inside of a glass vase Satin Nickel, and turned it upside down to dry. It didn’t dry exactly streak free hence the glittery spider stuck on with Glue Dots. Once dry, I wrapped the base of the branches in a newspaper and stuck it in the vase. The newspaper works great to hold the branches in place and prevents the paint from getting scratched by them. I shoved in more newspaper to make sure the branches don’t move, then covered the newspaper with as many black river rocks as I could find to hide the paper.

Using my Silhouette machine, I cut out around 30 bats, different shapes and different sizes onto black card stock. If you don’t have a cutting machine there is a cute bat paper punch here.

Then using a craft glue stick and Martha Stewart Onyx Glitter. I glittered all the bats. I read somewhere that if you spray a clear sealant on to items that are glittered, the glitter doesn’t fall off everywhere. While that may be true, I sprayed a few of the bats and the sealant made the glitter much less sparkly. So I don’t recommend the sealant. (If the glitter mess truly bothers you, just get some glitter paper and use that.) If you are truly ambitious, glitter both sides of the bats..if you’re lazy, glitter one side and position the bats on the tree so the glitter side shows 🙂 Then grab a needle and some black thread, and hang the bats on the tree.

Oh look! That bat in the back is upside down..he must be sleeping!

The credenza is beginning to look too monochromatic with the falling leaves canvas art and the white fox. I might need to make another pumpkin to brighten it up a bit.