Kids will enjoy this clothespin bat craft! Grab some simple supplies from your craft stash and make this fun craft that doubles as a toy.

This clothespin bat craft was originally posted in October 2014 and updated in October 2020.

This bat craft is great for either Halloween, or for a unit on bats. Honestly, that is what gave us the idea. We had been studying bats in our science book, and my second son (age 8 at the time) came up with this idea for making bats that he could play with.

Clothespin Bat Craft

If you’ve followed this blog for very long, you probably know that we love fall crafts, but we are careful with what we do for Halloween. I’m good with pumpkins, spiders, and bats, but we have chosen to avoid witches, death, and gore. That’s what we choose to do, in case you’ve been wondering. 🙂

To make clothespin bats you will need:

  • Wooden clothespins – the type that do not open and close with a spring
  • Black paint
  • Black felt
  • Black pipe cleaners
  • Googly eyes – small
  • Scissors
  • Hot glue gun
  • Bat wing pattern (Print below – click on “bat wing pattern,” then click it again on the next screen)

Bat Wing Pattern

Note: For the update on this craft, I used the same pattern, but I cut the wings a little shorter this time.

Step 1: Paint a clothespin black. We used acrylic paint.

Step 2: Cut two wings out of black felt.

Step 3: Glue on googly eyes and ears. The ears are just tiny triangles cut from black felt.

Step 4: Bend a black pipe cleaner into feet. We used one pipe cleaner to make two feet. Glue the feet to the sides of the clothespin with hot glue (on the front).

Make a “Y” shape as shown below. Then bend the toes so that they curve.

The curved toes allow the bats to hang upside down!

To display our bats, we arranged some sticks from the yard in a jar. Small pebbles work well to hold the sticks in place. The whole thing looks really good! Well, as good as a jar of bats can look… ha!

You can also fold up the bat wings by wrapping them around the clothespin like this:

If your kids like bats, you’ll also want to check out our LEGO Bat Building Instructions!

3 Comments

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  1. Lisa @ This Pilgrim Life Oct 15, 2014

    Fun idea! I'm pretty sure that these would go in my boys' room and not on my mantle though! ;-)

    Reply
  2. Amy Oct 14, 2020

    I love this idea! I clicked on the bat wing pattern link, but it takes me right back to the instructions. Please tell me how to fix this.

    Reply
    1. Sarah Oct 14, 2020

      Thanks for letting me know! I'll fix it.

      Reply
  3. Karen Oct 16, 2023

    You always have such fun ideas! And I just wanted to say I’m glad you celebrate Halloween in a more peaceful way - we do the same. It can be a very hard time of year for some, so thank you for putting out positive content!

    Reply

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