Halloween Spiders!!

It was a crisp fall day and I was feeling punk.  Kids were feeling restless, tired of keeping quiet because mom wasn't feeling well.  Managed to put on a hoodie and take them to the park, a park where I could stay in the car and watch them play.  As I sat there, in utter stillness and relative silence (with the windows rolled up), I let my mind just wander.  And behold, giant spiders made from sticks were created in my brain. 

There is a public area that is trees and leaves and trails and we headed there directly from the park, with the goal of finding two sticks each as tall as the youngest!  It didn't take us but 10 minutes to get all we needed and more!  Here's what I did with the kids, making it up as I went along!

Step one:  Cut off all the extra thin branches to make the sticks just long.  Then tape them with black electrical tape, weaving the tape in and out of the intersections to secure the shape.

 

 

Step Two: Get some helpers to spray paint your sticks black. 

 

Now during the next steps the camera batteries died.  And you moms know, if you are on a roll, better to just roll with it than bread the momentum!!

Step Three:  While the legs dry, we cut a black yard bag (Hefty, etc) in half the long way.  Removed the red plastic ribbon from each side.  Then, in the corner where the side of the bag meets the end of bag, we rolled up a wad of garage rags and stuffed them in there.  Then tied off the "head" with a twist tie.  Then, we used random balls from the garage for the "thorax" - I think one of them is an old tether ball - and wrapped the rest of the bag around that, securing with some thicker black wire I had lying around.  Then I cut the excess bag off.  Voila - the body of the spider done.

Step Four:  I used that black electric tape to secure the body to the legs, wrapping through the intersection and around the twist tie between our head and thorax. 

Step Five:  Purchase some "spider web" stuff from Walmart and secure the spiders to the front steps.  One I added wire around the tape to make a ring and hung it on the Xmas wreath spot.  The other one,  I used this old bed frame we usually have in the garden to let the peas climb.  I thought it added to the creep-tastic effect.

 

 

The final effect:

 

At this point, we could have added eyes or glow paint or my son thought a red diamond (or hourglass??  He's the one into critters) would be great.  I'm good the way they are!

 Thanks for viewing!  And may your Halloween be super spooky!