Bat Craft

A cute cardboard bat. Fun to make and a great decoration for Halloween.
With Halloween on the horizon, it’s most definitely time for a bat craft.
I really like bats. Any creature that can hang upside down so effortlessly is pretty cool in my eyes.
Today’s bat craft is quite simple and mostly just requires some card, black paint and a cardboard tube.
It’s a fun one for kids of all ages and little ones can enjoy it too, with a bit of help from an adult or sibling with the cutting and assembling.
Once your kids are done crafting, you can plant a few of these hand-made bats around your house in order to decorate for Halloween.
Ready to get cracking? Step by step instructions coming your way…
What you will need
- cardboard tube (toilet roll, paper towel roll etc)
- black paint
- cardstock
- template (you can find this at the end of the post)
- scissors
- tape
- black marker
- white crayon
How to make your Halloween bat craft, step by step:
Step 1
First, print off your bat template (you can find this at the bottom of the post). Or, you draw your own wings (x2) and bat head.
It’s best to print or draw onto cardstock. This helps the bat wings to stay up when your bat is all put together (they tend to flop down if printed on paper).
Next, cut out the two wings and head. Young children will need some help here with the cutting.

Step 2
Once everything is cut out, it’s time to paint the toilet roll tube, head and the two wings.
We used black acrylic paint as it covers really well and only needs one coat, even on white cardstock.
As always, if you’re doing this craft with young children, do make sure the paint you are using is child-friendly and non toxic.
Once your paint has dried, turn the wings and head over and paint the back too.

Step 3
Once the paint has dried, your child can enjoy adding a face to the bat. For this we used a white wax crayon (a white pencil crayon would do also).
First we added some detail on ears:

Next, the eyes. Cut two circles out of leftover cardstock. With a black marker, add black circles and then glue the eyes down.

Then add a mouth and a couple of teeth:

Step 4
Now it’s time to assemble everything.
In the side of the toilet roll tube you want to make two slits using scissors. Adult help may well be needed here (remind children who are doing this part to watch their fingers!).
These need only be 2 cm in length.
Once you’ve cut the slits, feed the thin end of the wing through until it won’t go any further.
Using a piece of tape, glue the end of the wing that you’ve fed through to the inside of the toilet roll tube.
Repeat with the other wing.
Step 5
The last step is to attach the bat’s head onto the end of toilet roll.
The best way to do this is as follows.
Cut a long thin strip of cardstock. With tape attach it to the back of the bat’s head like so:

Then feed to the two ends of the strip through the tube. Attach the two ends to the inside of the tube with tape.

And… your bat should look something like this:

If you’re making these in the Fall, you can put your finished bat or bats around the house to give it some Halloween flair this October.
Get your kids started with their bat craft by downloading the template here:
I hope you enjoyed this bat craft! Thanks for reading.
Want to save this paper bat craft for later? Why not pin it?
