Halloween Bat Garland: Free Template and 20 Minutes

A paper bat garland is the cheapest Halloween win in the house. Black paper, twine, scissors. That's the whole shopping list.

We made three of these in one afternoon to figure out what actually goes wrong. Two things do: bats that flip backward on the string, and paper too thin to hold a wing shape. Both are easy to dodge if you know before you start.

Download: Bat template — free PDF, Letter + A4 — no signup, no tricks.

What you need

• The bat template, printed once per 6 bats
• Black cardstock or heavy paper — 160gsm or thicker is the sweet spot
• Sharp scissors, or a craft knife and a cutting mat
• Twine, baker's string, or black thread — about 2m for a mantel
• Small binder clips or clothespins (optional, but they make hanging painless)

Printer paper works. It just flutters, curls in a draft, and looks limp under a light. If cardstock isn't in the house, use two sheets glued back to back.

The steps

1. Print the template. One page gives you a mixed set of bat outlines — a few large, a few small. Print on plain paper if you plan to trace, or straight onto the black cardstock if your printer will take it.
2. Stack and cut. Two sheets of cardstock at a time, no more. Three feels efficient and gives you fuzzy wing tips. Cut the outer wing edge first, then the inner scallops, then the ears last — the ears are the fragile bit and you want them cut while the paper is still supported.
3. Score a fold down the spine. Run a bone folder or the back of a butter knife down the centre of each bat, then fold gently so the wings angle forward. This is the step people skip. It turns a flat sticker of a bat into something that catches light and reads as a shape from across the room.
4. Mark your string spacing. Lay the twine out flat and mark every 12–15cm with a pencil dot. Even spacing is 80% of why a garland looks bought instead of homemade.
5. Attach the bats. Two options. Punch a small hole in each shoulder and thread the twine through both — that locks the bat in place and stops the flipping. Or run a line of glue along the spine fold and press the twine into it. If you're gluing, a tacky craft glue holds; a glue stick does not. We wrote up why in our honest guide to craft glue.
6. Hang and adjust. Binder clips at each end let you slide the whole garland along a mantel until the drape looks right. Aim for a shallow curve, not a taut line.

Real time and difficulty

Twenty-five minutes for a 12-bat garland if you're cutting by hand and not fussing. Add ten if you're teaching a kid the scissors. Difficulty is genuinely low — the only skill is patience on the wing scallops, and nobody will inspect them from two metres away.

The one honest warning: black cardstock shows every crease and fingerprint. Handle the bats by the wing edges and keep a scrap sheet under your work.

Download: Bat template — free PDF, Letter + A4 — no signup, no tricks.

One variation

Cut the same bats from old book pages or brown kraft paper instead of black. Print the template on plain paper, cut one bat out, and use it as a tracing shape. The result reads more autumn-mantel than haunted-house, and it sits happily next to a paper leaf garland if you want the whole shelf to match.

You can also mix scales — hang the large bats low and the small ones high, and the flock looks like it's flying up and out of the frame.

Before you pack up

Store the garland by coiling it loosely around a paper towel tube. Folding it flat creases the wings and you'll be re-scoring every bat next October.

If you're building out the rest of the room, the printable Halloween banner uses the same string-and-twine logic and hangs from the same two binder clips. Two afternoons and the front room is done.

Go make a flock.