Halloween Decorations Bat Mobile
There are several theories offered to explain the presence of bats as Halloween or Samhain symbols.
The Natural World explanation is that the light of the bonfires that have long been linked with this holiday draw all manner of insects, which in their turn, attract their natural predators to feed on them, meaning that bats are often seen around bonfires at this time of year and therefore the bat has become as visually synonymous with Halloween/Samhain as the bonfire itself has.
The Spiritual explanation is that the bat as a totem (that is to say, "a natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have a spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem" - the Dictionary definition of "Totem") encompasses many of the characteristics of the holiday, namely:* Rebirth
- Intuition
- Dreams
- Journeys
- Inner- Depth
- Communication
One simple and visually-effective way of adding bats to your Halloween/Samhain celebrations at home, is to construct a bat mobile (don't worry though, no oil and grease all over the carpet with this one, we're not talking vehicles here!).
With this method, construction is quick, easy, fun and can involve most members of the family, with under fives being (as always) supervised and aided by an adult.
For the mobile you will need:
- Pen or pencil and a scrap of paper to plan your mobile (if desired)
- Several Sheets of thin cardboard/thick paper (bear in mind black looks great but is harder to decorate if you only have crayons or pens available. Other colors may be easier - for example, red, which apart from being visually effective, would give red bats, which are lucky in some Eastern Traditions)
- Several small pompoms (commercial or home made) - one for each bat
- Several straight drinking straws (if you can't get straight ones, either cut the bend portion off, or incorporate it into your design)
- String or wool
- Stick or PVA glue, or flour-and-water paste.
- Decorative items, such as glitter, sticky shapes, sequins, paint, felt pens (whatever you have available)
- Scissors
- Lump of sticky-tack, plasticine, or playdough
- Sharp pencil, or skewer, or awl (chose whichever is the most safe option for all participants of your activity)
There are two main tricks to making a really good mobile. They are:
1) Start at the top and work downwards
2) Keep thinking of a weighing scale all the way down and try and keep the balance even. That's not so hard as it sounds, you'll see as we go along.
First, make the bats. It's important that they be roughly the same weight, so it's best to make a template shape and cut all of them alike. Decorate them according to preference, but preserve the pompoms (these will be the bodies) for later.
For the mobile:
To begin with, you need to work out how much you want the overall piece to hang. Drops between 30 and 50cms work best and need about a 1m length of string for the main section.
Bend the main string in half and tie a knot to make a hanging loop. Add a straw to each end of the string and tie a knot behind it to catch it into place. This gives the main backbone of your piece.Tie each end to the middle of a straw and run another, shorter string through the straw and knot it each end to keep the straw in place.
Put a bat at a time over the sticky-tack or plasticine and poke a hole in the center of the body.
Thread a bat onto the end of the string and tie a knot in the end to keep it. Glue a pompom 'body' over every knot to conceal the knot and help to weight the bats in position.
Go back to the top and center, hold the mobile up and decide where you want your next bats to hang. Keep adding as many as you want, symmetrically, always working from top to bottom.
Then, simply hang and enjoy!
