Crafty moment

This little craft is certainly not related to the Holidays but holy crap it's cute!

A week ago, my youngest girl took a toilet paper roll and randomly asked me to help her make a bat. I keep the paper rolls out of the garbage to burn in the wood stove and occasionally keep some for crafts. I guess she saw one and remembered that we made little critters out of them before. Now why did this feline lover ask me for a bat when a cat would have been just as easy and less Halloween-ish so close to Christmas? No clue. I just went along with it.

I was sick and not feeling very crafty (or patient) but I knew this would be easy. She asked me how to bend the top for ears. I showed her that if you push down on the top edge of the roll it will bend on one side and then to repeat on the other side to create that crescent shape. We could have done the same at the bottom for cute stubby legs but she didn't care for that. She was ready to draw a face but struggled with the pencil's light lines so I allowed her to use our big Sharpie. I'm fully aware that with kids that can be lethal but she was good. Then she asked me to add lashes.



For wings, I didn't look far. The house was cluttered with things all over the place and I spotted a pile of mixed papers on top of a pile of laundry on top of a chair. Yup! On top of that paper pile were wrapping paper scraps from a birthday party we just had for my oldest. Perfect! Sometimes clutter has perks. The paper was sweet and a bit random with it's pattern. Just like my little one's request. She wasn't convinced though and wanted plain paper. "But that's too hard to find!" I said. I tried to sell her on my idea. I bent the paper in half cut a shape that resembled a bat's wing, opened it to show the 2 wings and propped them behind the bat with a little "Taddaa!" It was love at first sight. The paper made it look whimsical and more fun. All it needed was a bit of tape in the back and a second "Taddaa!" (this time with a confident smile). Maybe we'll add a little red hat to show that we are aware of the season.



I swear she played with that thing for hours! Worth the few minutes I spent on it. She made it flap it's wings (wrapping paper beats cardboard for that) and she propped it all over the place. I took a pic of her "new pet" propped on the lamp and next thing I know she wanted to pose next to it. It went on for a bit...  :)







*Update* Thanks to the red glossy cover of a tiny notepad, a felt snowball from a long lost ornament and lots of tape, we have a Christmas bat! I didn't tell her. I'm going to see how long it takes for her to find out! ;) If she finds it offensive, the hat is easy to remove. I'm having way too much fun with this and isn't that the point?