Paper Lantern Bats and Ghosts for Halloween

Now that the nights are drawing in, my thoughts are turning to the Autumn and Winter events on the calendar, the first one being Halloween, which is a big event in our house. Not for the spookiness, but for the annual Pumpkin Party that is usually scheduled around that time. So when Red Ted Art threw down the crafting gauntlet for Halloween crafts, you would have thought that we would dive into the Pumpkin crafting with delight.

Not so. Instead, The Girls and I have been making very simple but charming- if you can use that term of such things- Bats, Ghosts and Spiders with nothing more than a sheet of paper and a couple of googly eyes.

If you remember school crafting, there is a very real chance that you remember making paper lanterns at Christmas, and these Halloween-themed lanterns are made in exactly the same way.

Fold a piece of good quality paper or card lengthways in half, then snip in regular intervals from the fold towards the two edges, without cutting all the way through. Cut all the way along your strip of card, then unfold and press flat. Finally, bend the paper from short edge to short edge, creating a tube with slits in, and stick the two loose ends together.

For the bat- and using black card- we added googly eyes, a pair of white card fangs and some bat wings, and a piece of ribbon to hang it with.

For the spider- black again- I cut a third off a piece of A4 black card, divided it into eight long strips and concertina-ed them. These created the eight legs which we stuck onto the shorter, fatter lantern made from the remaining piece of A4 paper. Eyes and hanging ribbon completed the look.

For the ghost, I used white card. I also folded the card slightly unevenly, so that one long edge stuck out beyond it’s pair when folded. After cutting the slits as previously mentioned, I trimmed the long edge with a curvy line, which formed the bottom of the ghost when the lantern was bent into shape. More eyes were needed, as well as a handle, which I made quite simply from the curvy off-cut of the ghosts ‘skirt’.

These are very simple crafts that any child or adult can enjoy making and work very effectively when hung around the hallway at night-time!

Other ideas from the Halloween Craft Hangout include:

a lovely hand-sewn bag for trick-or treating from Plus2.4

spiders from polystyrene from the beautifully decorated Zing Zing Tree

Super cork spiders and fabric pumpkins from Me and My Shadow

Pom Pom spiders from Kids Chaos

And some amazing little Bat Pinatas and glow in the dark eyeballs from Maggy at Red Ted Art.

Tune in next week when we share some Autumn Nature Crafting Ideas.