Tinsel black cat and witch hat makeover

Give your Halloween decorations an upgrade! With just a few supplies and a little time, you can transform this cheap Dollar Tree tinsel black cat and witch hat into something way more classy and deserving of a spot in your house!

Have you ever seen those cheap tinsel holiday decorations at the store and wondered who actually buys those? Me too! Well… this year I actually bought some, to give them a makeover! This tinsel black cat and witch hat look so much better and are definitely Halloween decorations that I will now bring out to use year after year.

In full transparency, this project was one that I thought would be super simple and quick. In reality, the Dollar Tree black cat was a little harder to do because of all the curves on it. The witch hat was a lot easier! However, I have some tips on how you can still upgrade the black cat without being as super thorough as I was.

In the end, I do think it was worth it because they look soooo good! Don’t you agree!? You can always add more embellishments to them as well. For instance, little fairy lights wrapped around them or a friend of ours gave me the idea of a mummy cat. I like that one, may have to use it in the future. 🙂

Supplies to do a tinsel black cat and witch hat makeover

*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.

Watch the quick video

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to upgrade the tinsel witch hat. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want detailed instructions on how to make the black cat, continue reading.

How to give a Dollar Tree black cat a makeover

I am going to preface this tutorial with the fact that there will be a lot of pictures, more than words explaining the process because really it is just wrapping the form with the macrame cord. You know what they say… “a picture is worth a thousand words”. 😉 Really, it is something you just have to dig in and try for yourself. Maybe you will find a better way to wrap the cat than I did. It took longer than I thought it would. I figured I would whip out both the cat and witch hat in one afternoon. The witch hat was a lot easier and it did only take a bit over an hour to do.

The black cat on the other hand was a lot more difficult and I spent a couple hours for a couple afternoons working on it. In hindsight, I would have just loosely wrapped the macrame cord around the cat multiple times, or even used twine and spray painted it black. However, if you like the look of the tightly wrapped cat, check out the pictures and tips below.

Unwrap the tinsel

The first step in the project is to unwrap the tinsel from the black cat form. Start on a leg and snip the tinsel. It will unwrap easily from the legs.

Next start unwrapping the tail and body. Notice the little nubs on the cat form? These help to hold the tinsel in place and will help to hold the macrame cord as well.

When you unwrap the head, you can keep the eyes and whiskers or just pitch them like I did, it’s up to you. The cat form was actually two separate halves that came apart. I glued them together to make one form so it was easier to work with.

Wrap the cat’s head

This was probably the hardest part of the whole project so it was nice to get it out of the way first. Cut a good length of black macrame cord and start by wrapping the cat ears. Work with manageable lengths of cord when you cut it, you don’t want them too short but not too long either. You want to get around the end of the ear first before you start wrapping it around. I also wanted the little nubs to be covered up so sometimes I had to wrap an area a couple times.

After both ears are done, wrap in between them as well. You can hot glue the end of the macrame cord to the inside of the cat head.

To begin the head, I stuck an end of macrame cord inside the head and started crisscrossing around the ears a couple times, then wrapped around the head.

You will get to a point where the neck attaches to the head so you have to work around that. Keep wrapping around the head anchoring to one of the posts in the neck. I found it was easier to use tweezers to pull the cord through tight openings.

When you reach the bottom of the head, you will want to use some hot glue to help secure the macrame cord as there is nothing to anchor it to. Wrap until you can’t anymore and stick the end inside the head.

Wrap the cat neck

To begin the neck, I stuck the end of the cord into the completed head and started wrapping around the cat’s neck. Work all the way back to where the neck joins the back of the cat.

Next, I worked on the area behind the neck. I started wrapping around the curved body first, then the junction of the leg and the neck. It was a little difficult to get everything covered. As you can see in this picture, sometimes I had to overlap areas.

Wrap the cat’s tail and legs

Now head to the other end of the cat and work on the tail. Glue an end of cord to the inside of the tip of the tail and start wrapping making sure the tip is covered similar to how we did the ears. Continue until the whole tail is covered.

Next, move on to the area in front of the tail.

Cover the junction of the tail and body. Again you will overlap some wrapping of cord to get everything covered. Cover any exposed cat form before starting down the front leg. Repeat with the back leg.

Continue wrapping the front legs as well.

Wrap the cat’s body

Finally, start wrapping the cat body. The nubs really help in this process. As you get closer to the middle of the arched back, you will have to double up the wrapping on the bottom of the cat since there is less area to cover. The top of the cat will be cord just laid right next to each other.

Continue wrapping until you get the whole body covered.

We made it! What do you think of the upgraded black cat? He looks better, right? Make sure you check out the video to see how the witch hat came together, it was a lot easier process. Here is a picture of the witch hat with some lights on it for inspiration.

You got a little sneak peek at my Halloween tree and decorations in this post! I will be sharing those all with you soon, including how I used these updated tinsel black cat and witch hat in my decorating. Chat soon friends!