Last year, when I saw little 10-packs of bat, rat and owl paper silhouettes I immediately knew I wanted to do something with them.  (Plus I was just happy I didn't have to spend any time cutting them out by hand!)  I was going to use them on my steps, like Martha did:
But that only used the little rats.  Owls sitting on my stairs would be bizarre.

So this year I decided I would feature ALL of them in one giant mantlescape.



Under the cover of darkness I snuck outside and cut some old dead branches off my neighbors tree, and put them in a vase.  Then I glue gunned the hanging bats and owls onto the branches.   The 3-D effect is really cool, but it doesn't translate very well into photographs.

To give it a little more interest, I ran some orange mini-lights under some black cheesecloth (another dollar store find) to give it an eerie glow at night:

It is pretty creepy when it is dark.  My husband actually said he was dreaming about rats because of it. Mua-ha-ha-ha!  *evil cackle*