How To Be A Disco Bat For Halloween

There are varying levels of Halloween commitment. There are the people who hand sew their own period-accurate Marie Antoinette gowns, to the people who carefully cobble together costumes from items bought at Forever 21, to the people who throw together costumes last minute, down to the people who only half-commit with some whimsical headwear — which is where this tutorial comes in!

If you're headed to a low-key Halloween shindig — one of those ones where you're not really sure if you're supposed to come in costume or not — this StyleNanda-inspired bat headband might be just the right choice for you. It's fun, it's festive, and it's just the right amount of cool (at least, I hope). You could go a couple of different directions with it too — it could make a cutesy touch to a Mephistopheles costume, or it could just be paired with a LBD for the bat version of the basic (or non-basic!) cat costume.

Another plus? It's totally cheap: I just picked up some rubber bats from the 99 Cent Store, and a black hairband from Daiso (which is basically the Japanese version of the 99 Cent Store, except for the fact that everything's a little cuter and 50 cents more). So, all in all it only set me back $2.50 —actually only $2.00, in fact, because I still have one extra bat for later! Here we go:

Look how classy I am! I got glitter bats, because that's all they had at my particular branch of the 99 Cent Store. Looking back, however, I'd recommend regular bats, because these dropped glitter like crazy. Another alternative? Starched felt would probably work really well.

For the bats, just cut the wings off as close to the body as possible (and try not to feel bad for the poor, wingless inanimate object).

Line up the ears with the headband, and trim the wings to fit with the curvature of the band.

As for the finishing touches, hot glue it like mad. Seriously, I used up almost an entire hot glue stick on this — those wings were heavy, and they needed a lot of glue to cement them onto the band. Oh, and if you used glittery wings like me, I would add some sort of sealant to make sure they're not leaking glitter everywhere! Incidentally, all I had around the house was glittery Mod Podge, and the result was quite, er... holographic and disco-y.

And done! They're not quite as dramatic as the StyleNanda headband I used for inspiration — I wish they were just a smidge bigger. But overall, I'm happy: They're kind of the happy medium between devil horns and bunny ears, with an added fun twist.

Oh, and because my dog Sophie did such a good job modeling my Meghan Trainor-inspired flowered hairband, I decided to subject her to the bat ears:

She didn't like them.

Images: stylenandaofficial/Instagram; Rosie Narasaki