Continuing the pandemic era sewing and craft projects, I upcycled bunny ears into a pair of bat ears. My blogging bestie Miranda from Spooky Little Halloween and I went on a Halloween cruise in 2019 and were given bunny ears in Roatan, Honduras. Weird, right? Me being the craft hoarder that I am, I took them home and promised to make them into some Halloween themed bunny ears for her, and finally delivered on that promise just in time for Springoween/Easter/Ostara. I’ve also shared a free downloadable pattern of my bunny ears at the end of this post.
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This project used only surplus craft supplies and fabric from my stash, and I digitized bat ears to fit the wire frame from the bunny ears. Removal of the bunny ears and headband fabric was pretty simple, and everything came off in one piece. I reshaped the wire frames into wide triangles and cut 2 purple ear pieces, 2 pink ear pieces, 2 liner ear pieces, 4 inner ear pieces, and about a yard of 1 1/2″ wide diagonal strips (for stretch) to make into bias tape trim. I freehand hot glued ridges onto the liner and ironed the pink onto the liner, re-melting the glue (and used parchment paper to protect my iron from glue).
Using a size 18 bias tape maker, I ironed the 1 1/2″ diagonal strip into double fold bias tape for the trim. Then I used 1/4″ fusible tape on the inside folds to stick the bias tape to the edges of the pink and purple, joining them together. I ironed the bias tape to the pink and purple, careful not to reheat the hot glue ridges.
Bias tape maker set: HONEYSEW Bias Tape Maker Kits All 5 Sizes 6MM 9MM 12MM 18MM 25MM Binding Foot Craft Clips Awl Quilter’s Pin
Fusible tape: Pellon EZ Steam II Lite 1/4 X40 Yards Tape – White
Then I sewed the inner ear pieces together, right sides together, with a ~1/2″ seam. I used a chopstick to turn them right side out and make them pointy, without puncturing the fabric, and ironed them flat(ish). And I stitched around the trim of the bat ears for good measure.
For the headband, I hot glued/wrapped the rest of my purple bias tape around the headband, covering the cheap plastic. Then I hot glued a strip of velvet ribbon on the underside to hold the headband in place on hair. I slipped the bat ears onto the wire frames, curled/shaped them, inserted the inner ears, and hot glued everything in place. Did I make it more complicated than it needed to be? Probably, but that’s how I roll. It was still a super quick afternoon project that I’m pretty proud of. And Miranda loves them!
Velvet ribbon: Chenkou Craft 30 Yards 3/8″ Velvet Ribbon Total 30 Colors Assorted Lots Bulk
“It’s frickin bats!”
Download my PDF Bat Ears pattern here: BatEarsRSRW
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