A couple of years ago I spent a couple of days in northeastern Massachusetts watching my then 5 and 2 year old niece and nephew. I am a little out of practice spending hours on end with that age group, but I put on my âWhen I was a good momâ hat (for those of you who donât understand that reference check out this post here), and began looking for some fun things to do to keep them busy.
On my final day of âbabysittingâ that meant crafting. More specifically it meant Halloween crafting.
After browsing through Google Images and Pinterest, my niece and I decided we would make spiders and ghosts.
We all strapped into my sisterâs mini-van, and headed to Walmart. But we encountered one problem â Walmart had moved to a new location and we had no idea where that might be. Internet searches were no help, so we tried  Kohls and Lowes to see if we could find supplies ⌠to no avail (they had plenty of supplies for Christmas, but Halloween decorations were sparse). We finally hit upon a small JoAnn Fabrics and began searching.
We couldnât find all the supplies we were looking for, so we improvised. This is what we ended up with:
Hanging spider supplies:
- 1 extra large styrofoam ball
- 1 large black garbage back (or black paint, but we didnât have the time for the paint to dry)
- 1 piece each, black and white felt (we used ones with a self adhesive back)
- A large ball of black yarn (it would have been easier to use black streamers but we couldnât find any)
- Glue (I recommend a glue gun)
- Rubberband
- A stapler
- 8 black pipe cleaners extra long (optional)
Directions:
Place the styrofoam ball in the garbage back and twist the end of the garbage back tightly until it forms around the ball tightly and tie off with a rubberband (painting would have probably looked better, but we were impatient and didnât want to wait for it to dry). Cut the excess garbage bag (The extra can be used to cutout black bats for your wall or a bat mobile. Find a template and directions here.)
Use a large coffee mug or bowl as a template to draw two white circles and two black half-circles on the felt pieces and put them together to make the batâs eyes. Then stick them on your black ball spider head/body.
Now comes the tricky and semi labor intensive part if you cannot find black streamers. Cut multiple arm length strands of black yarn (the thickness depends on how thick you want your spider legs to be), tie off the ends and braid them together, tying off with a small piece of black yarn at the end. Repeat this until you have eight legs. Note: I recommend braiding one black pipe cleaner into the center of each leg (which we did not do) to make the legs bendable and easy to position the way you want.
Now staple or glue four legs on each side of your spider.
Use another piece of yarn to attach to the top of the spider head (we wrapped ours around the excess left by the garbage back) to create a string for hanging, and hang it up for the family to admire.
Ghost Supplies:
- 8 small styrofoam balls
- 2 white bandanas (each made 4 ghosts)
- Googly eyes
- Black fabric marker
- Orange yarn
- Paper clips
- Fishing line (optional)
Directions:
Split each bandana into four equal squares using scissors or making a small cut and ripping the fabric if it was folded into equal squares already. Place a styrofoam in the middle of each of bandana, twist the fabric around it and tie a piece of yarn at the âneckâ so the excess fabric hangs down. Draw two eyes and a mouth (the kids had fun drawing different shaped mouths ⌠smiley face, frowns, open mouth, crooked, etc.). The break a paper clip in half so you each half forms an arc (our scissors were strong enough to cut the paper clip, but you can use wire cutters to make it easier), and press the paper clip into the top of the foam head to make a hanger. Tie the yarn (or use fishing line to make them look as if they are floating in thin air) and hang from doorways, ceilings, window frames, etc.
I was happier with the ghosts and they were A LOT easier to make, quicker and took just the right amount of time for the little onesâ attention spans. The spider was a little more difficult and didnât come out exactly how I would have liked, but my critics were 2 and 5 and they loved it, so it was all good and I was still a much-loved Aunt Kellers!
Hereâs what the final products looked like.
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