Invitations Ink

Halloween Cupcake Liner Bat

OK! Here it goes – something I’ve been anxiously anticipating for quite awhile now – our first crafting tutorial! Yiipee! :)

Shockingly, it involves glitter! I know, so out of character, but couldn’t be helped. Now please bear with me, I’m sure the pictures are less than spectacular and any advice, tips, corrections, and constructive criticism on this process are certainly welcome – just be gentle ;)

This project is a spin off of the cupcake paper pom poms I made for our awesome friend Carissa of Sugar & Spice Specialty Desserts. Carissa gives me all the excuses I need to get creative since she let’s me decorate her adorable little bakery downtown. So when I saw the original version over at Kara’s Party Ideas, I made her 3 pink ones right away, and when brainstorming Halloween decor ideas, I thought a pumpkin version of the pom poms would be super cute and a spooky bat would be over-the-top adorable!

So here’s what you’ll need:
3″ foam ball
80-100 black cupcake liners (standard size)
glue gun
hot glue
pen
small plastic cup (optional to hold the ball in place easier)
download & print this pdf – wing and eyes template
8.5×11 or larger black cardstock
White cardstock/paper
scissors
Krylon Glitter Blast Spray Paint – Starry Night
4 flat toothpicks

First thing to do is draw a line all the way around the ball dividing it in half. This will help with the placement of the wings.

Next is the time consuming part – gluing the cupcake liners to the ball. Take the flat bottom end of the pen and place it in the center of each cupcake liner. Now I’ve experimented with both ways and it seems to give slightly better color when you place the pen in the inside of the liner. You’ll then pull the sides of the liner down around the pen. Holding the liner on the pen, you’ll dab some hot glue on the end and stick it to the foam ball, holding for a few seconds until secure.

Continue this process until you have one half of the ball covered and are ready to attach the wings. For the wings, you can download the pdf and print out the template. Either print directly on your black cardstock if possible, or print out on paper and trace on to the cardstock and cut out two copies. Hot glue 2 of the flat toothpicks to each wing and insert into the foam along the line that you drew in the first step. Once you have both wings in place you can continue gluing the cupcake liners on the rest of the ball.

Now comes the really fun part – the glitter! So by now you’ve read past the materials list and maybe you just skimmed past it and didn’t realize the sheer awesomeness of the item listed as Krylon Glitter Blast Spray Paint – Starry Night. Maybe you were distracted by the heavens opening up and the angels singing like I was when I first read those words. Sparkling glitter spray paint available in 12 colors, as in every color of the rainbow and then some! Not just silver or gold, but COLORS, real colors! Ummm, so where was I? Oh yeah, the tutorial – so follow the directions on the can and get all spray-glitter-crazy and cover your bat from head to wing (that’s kinda all there is after all, but you get my point).

Let the sparkly little guy dry for awhile and while it’s might be super tempting to watch him dry, you can probably tear yourself away long enough to cut out the eyes from the printed template and maybe even use some Stickles Glitter Glue if you’re insanely addicted to glitter like some of those oddball crafty types I’ve heard of. Anyhow, once your glittered eyes are dry (we all know you glittered them so don’t even pretend), figure out the positioning you like the best, then slap some hot glue on them and press them down for a few seconds and Ta Da! You now have yourself a glitterific Halloween cupcake liner bat that will slightly smell like bug spray for a few hours :)

And here’s a pic of the pumpkin version although I realized after I took these photos that my pumpkin still needs some cute little corkscrew, whispy vines up near the stem. Eh, I’m over 30 now so my teenagers will quickly point out that I’m getting old and senial, so it’s just to be expected, sorry ;)

Ok, so whaddya think? Can I get at least a C+ for effort? It wasn’t all that bad was it? I mean besides the occasional ramblings and all the damn smiley/winky faces, right?