Dress up your mantel this year with this spooky chic Halloween felt garland with bats and wood beads! It is easy to make and right on trend with the natural wood beads!
Halloween is right around the corner, but don’t worry you have plenty of time to make this adorable Halloween felt garland! You saw it last week on my whimsical Halloween mantel and now I am going to show you how to make one for yourself!
I saw a similar garland that was my inspiration when I was perusing Etsy, and knew I wanted to recreate it for myself. It is a very simple Halloween garland to make, however I understand that some people may not have the desire or time to make one. If that is the case, check out this garland on Etsy (affiliate link) to buy it instead!
The natural beads I used were ones that I already had from a garland that I cut up previously. That can be a great way to get some wood beads for less money! Stock up on some inexpensive wood bead garlands at Walmart around Christmas time and cut them apart to have some beads for crafts later! 😉 These beads have a clear coat on them, so they look shinier, but I will link to uncoated natural wood beads like in the inspiration garland.
This felt bat garland is a relatively quick craft as well. I finished this in a couple hours one afternoon. There are some intricate cuts with the curves on the bat wings, but if you have some competent kids with scissors, they could absolutely help too!
Supplies to make a Halloween felt garland
*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.
- Natural Wood Beads (18mm) – you will need 54 beads in total
- Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
- Black Felt Sheet
- Jute twine
- Scissors
- Bat template
- Card stock
Print out the bat template
The first step is to print out the bat template onto a piece of card stock. Any light colored card stock will work, just use whatever you have around. When you are printing, make sure you print this template at 100% to make sure the size is correct. Every printer is different so just make sure your settings are not set to ‘fit to page‘ or that the box is not checked letting your printer make changes. The printed bat template should be 4.75″ long. After you print the bat, just cut it out with some sharp scissors.
Cut out felt bats
The next step will be to cut the bats out of the felt. I used a regular sheet of felt because I already had it on hand, but you can also buy the heavier duty felt to make the bats stiffer. This is the most time consuming step of the whole garland although it did not take too long. Lay your bat onto the black felt sheet and cut a strip just a bit wider than the bat along the short edge of the felt sheet. You should be able to cut two bats out of this strip if you flip the bat upside down on the other end. if you are not worried about saving some felt, just buy two pieces of felt, and cut along the long edge to make it easier. 🙂
I did not trace the template onto the felt, I just held it against the felt while I cut and it worked fine. That is why it is good to use card stock for your bat template instead of regular paper. It was much sturdier. However, if you feel more comfortable tracing the template onto the felt, do that by all means!
Trim up any edges if needed after you cut out the bat. Cut out eight bats total.
Poke holes in bat’s wings
To thread the bats onto the twine, you need to poke some holes into the wings. I used an ice pick and it worked perfectly. There is no need to measure this, just eyeball it about a 1/4″ in from the wing points.
Thread wood beads and bats onto Halloween felt garland
Cut a length of twine to about six feet (72″) long.
Start by threading on six wood beads. Move those beads to the center of the twine. It is easiest to work from both ends when threading on the beads and bats so you have the least amount of twine to work through.
When you are threading on the felt bats, you want the twine to be behind the bat, so start the twine coming from the front when you go through the hole. You will have to switch which side you go in first when you thread on the other side.
Continue alternating bats then six beads until both sides are full. You will end each side with beads. Spread out the garland to make sure the bats and beads are all straight (not bunched up) and have enough room.
Tie double knots at the end of the beads to keep them from falling off. Then tie a loop to hang the garland from.
To secure the felt bats to the twine so they would not bunch up, I added a dot of hot glue on the wings. Hold the twine down to let it sink into the hot glue. Do not press the twine down directly onto the hot glue or else the hot glue will sink into the felt and show on the front side of the bat. Speaking from experience here. Ha!
Simple and cute, right?
Hang your felt bat garland to display
Like I said earlier, I hung my Halloween wood bead garland on my mantel. However there are lots of ways you could use it! You could display it on a mirror, book shelf, three tiered tray or just in a basket on the table.
Whew! I have been sharing a lot of Halloween decor this year! So who is ready for some general fall posts? Or have you already moved onto Christmas? That is always the conundrum this time of year, between showing fall vs Halloween decor because everyone starts Christmas so early! Well, I have some fun fall crafts and a recipe to share before we get to Christmas around here, so don’t get too holly jolly on me yet. Although to be honest, behind the scenes I am already planning out my Christmas decor! 😉
Hello! I am so glad you came to visit my site today. I hope you can take something from here to inspire you or just make you smile.
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