Boa Bats Revisited

One of the things I've been doing during Covid is going through my craft stash and either finally finishing projects or donating things I'm never going to use.  

I really like these adorable boa bats, and had the best of intentions to create a whole colony of them.  So I stocked up on supplies and then procrastinated for years because as much as I like them, I despise cutting things out more.  

I posted about these guys one Creepmas because I have a cute bunch of these that are all snowy white just for that occasion.  I had a new idea for making these and went back to that post to find the original source and it doesn't exist anymore.  

Luckily I still had the templates I made from the original source, so I didn't have to create my own design.   The original craft sported three different style of wings, although I wasn't crazy about the other two, I really like this shape.  

My updated method of making these bats is to print out the wings, rough cut around them and then glue them onto felt (or foam) sheets with glue sticks.  The glue doesn't hold well, so after cutting on the lines the paper peels right off.  Shown is a standard* piece of 9x12 felt.  That's also a common size for foam sheets.  

*Standard when you live in a country that still uses inches.  It's roughly equivalent to 23x30cm.  

The wings from large to extra small vary by 10% in size.  The following two sets of wings can be printed on 8.5x11 paper.  

To assemble, wrap a feather boa around the middle of the bat wings.  How many wraps really depends on the thickness of the boa and how plump you want your bats.  For thick feather boa's I wrap twice for the larger sized wings and once for the smaller.  If I wasn't such a disaster with hot glue, I'd probably use that.  But I am a disaster, so I use Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky Glue.  I have to hold it in for about a minute to set.  

I use a clear beading line, similar to fishing line, to hang them, one on each end.  I string it through the loop created by the boa body. This also helps if there is more than one boa wrap to keep them together, because of this I usually wait until after I do this step to add the eyes.   

The line is clear plastic and slippery.  I'm sure there's probably a fancy knot to securely use it, but I don't know what that is.  Instead I use a small 1mm crimp bead, which just as the name suggests is a small metal bead that you can flatten with a pliers to secure. 

For less floppy wings you can use foam sheets or stiffen felt.  I don't mind floppy wings and my absolute favorite is using textured felt.  

I'm going to hold myself accountable to finishing off a few more batches of bats before the end of the year and then I can consider myself to be sufficiently batty.   So here's two ideas I had that I will not be trying out, but I'll share in case you'd like to make more work for yourself:  Needle felting wool roving into bone ridges on the wings.  Cutting two wings per bat and sandwiching wire or pipe cleaners in-between to make the wings poseable.