Spooky Spider

Hi all!  OK, real quick…I’m gonna share with you the spooky spider my son and I created last week.  Leave it to Better Homes & Gardens to inspire me!  I mean, how many pages need to get ‘doggy eared’ before I just say, “DAMN!  This is a good addition this month :)”

October 2018 issue features a house COVERED in over-sized spiders.  We’re talkin’ like ELEVEN, 4-5′ spiders!!!  Sooooo awesomely creepy!!!!  I thought to myself, “Hmmmm…Our porch could use a few over-sized spiders!!!”  and before you knew it, the engine was revving and I was heading off to Home Depot.

MAKING A SPIDER

What you need (per spider–though, I bought enough for 2 spiders):

• 4, 6′ pipe insulation tubes, cut in half (I bought the 1.5″ round)
• scissors (to cut foam and fabric)
• 1/2 yard of faux fur (I chose black with my Joann coupon)
• Rubber covered electrical wire, (approx. 12′-check the remnant rack–I got mine for half off)
• 18 gage steel wire
• wire cutters
• 1 large garden hanging basket (I looked at Goodwill first and sure enough, there were 2!)
• 1 small dome basket (I found mine at Goodwill.  It’s a circle basket that opened in the middle…our babysitter thinks it is for washing “delicates” in the washer.  Who knows!  Makes a good spider head though! 🙂 )
• Black thread
• 1 needle

To Start

1. Measure out the fabric around your baskets.

2. Trim around your baskets

3. Sew the fur so that it just tucks over the edge of the basket.

4. Continue until you have sewn the fabric all the way around the basket.

5. Continue with the smaller basket till you have 2 covered domes.

6. Attach the two domes with the 18 gauge steel wire.

7. Cut the coated wire into approximately 22″ pieces.  Feed each of those 8 pieces into the foam tubes, letting approx. 4″ hang out the end (this is what you use to attach the leg to the body).

8. Poke a hole thru the spider’s body at the base of the basket where you want the leg to attach and twist the exposed wire around the base of the basket.  Continue with 3 more legs, I spaced them about 2″ apart.  Repeat with the other 4 legs on the opposite side of the basket.

9. (Optional) Even after bending the wire at the “knee joint”, the legs weren’t standing up on their own very well.  So, my “engineer-minded’ son cut a long piece of the 18 gauge wire and fed it thru the base of each foam leg (approx. 2″ above where the leg attaches to the body) them poked a hole thru the fabric on the body on each end of the 4 legs and secured the wire inside the dome body.  (I will try to get pictures…we didn’t document this part.  We were more focused on the mechanics and how it was going to work!)  It worked great.  We sharpied the exposed wire with black to blend in and it’s barely noticeable.

10. Hang that spooky spider!!!

NOTES:

We ended up taping the spider’s left legs directly to the house.  When we didn’t, they just kind of hung there, limp.  The right hand legs I kind of nestled into the needles of the tree.  So far that’s working.  We’ll see how it lasts once the weather starts to get nasty!!!!!

Now…do I have the energy (and time!) to make my second one?  (How the heck did that BHG home owner have the tenacity to make ELEVEN?!!  So impressed!!!)

Happy spookifying, y’all!

xo, Melissa