This past weekend my wife and son were making Halloween decorations (as I’ve mentioned before, my boy is somewhat enthusiastic about autumn) and demanded bat paper dolls.
I’d struggled to make paper dolls as a kid (I’m not super visual), so I was pretty shocked when I managed to make these lil guys on the first try. Here are some pointers:
- FOLD THE PAPER: Cut a strip of paper (mine was 11 inches long–because it was loose-leaf writing paper–by ~2 inches tall). Accordion fold this strip an odd number of times. As you can see in Figure 1, this puts both your “open” ends on the same side of the little folded paper packet. That’s sort of important, or you’ll wind up with a trailing half-a-bat.
- CUT OUT HALF A BAT: Hold your paper packet with the “open” side to the left and the “fold side” to the right. Cut out the half-bat I’ve shown in Figure 2, noting that the tip of the wing (circled in red in both Figures 2 and 3) is blunt and goes off the edge of the packet. PRO-TIP: If you hold the packet wrong, with the “fold” side to the left, you end up with monstrous inverse-bats. If you hold it with the fold to the top or bottom, you get half-bat confetti.
- UNFOLD: Voila! You’ve got bat-swag! Note that the wingtip is blunt (circled in Figures 2 and 3), which is what makes it possible for all your bats to link together (highlighted by the dashed square in Figure 3).
