DIY Halloween Spider Craft

Here at UNA (and in colleges across the nation), it’s a tradition to decorate our dorm doors according to season, holiday, and so on. I made a wreath for the autumn season, and many people did projects of a similar thread.

Now that it’s October, I wanted to decorate my door for Halloween! What better way to combine different colors, glitter, and creepy décor? But what to do…

Of course, I decided to craft my decorations rather than buy them, and I finally settled on making some spiders to crawl up the door. They’re fairly simple to create, can be customized in an infinite amount of ways, and they’re perfect for Halloween!

Things you’ll need to make four spiders:

4 Styrofoam balls of any size you desire

Black craft paint

Orange glitter

Black pipe cleaners

Orange pipe cleaners

Googly eyes (I chose the small ones so I could glue on more than two eyes)

Bowl

Tacky Glue

Instructions:

1. The first thing you need to do is paint your spider-balls. Grab your bowl and squeeze a good amount of the black craft paint in your bowl. Take a foam ball and roll it around in the bowl until it’s completely covered. You can also stick a pipe cleaner in the ball to hold it so you can twirl it, brush it, dip it, etc. Do all four.
2. Set the painted balls aside on a paper towel. Then sprinkle the glitter over them, covering them evenly. Of course, you want them to be black with glitter, but not completely glittered out, so sprinkle until you’re satisfied with the coverage. Let dry while doing the next steps.
3. Take your orange and black pipe cleaners and twist them together to make legs. Cut the twists in half to create two legs, bending each one down a bit at the end. Remember, spiders have joints!
4. There are two ways you can attach the legs. You can poke them into the sides of your spider-ball, or you can connect them underneath, which is what I did. Twist opposing pairs of legs together (one from the right side of the body, one from the left), until all eight legs have been paired up. Then, using a small piece of pipe cleaner, fasten them together by twisting the scrap pipe cleaner piece around them. Use the end of the scrap piece to stick into the bottom of the spider-ball.
5. Use the tacky glue to place your eyes. Some of mine have eight eyes, some have three, etc. I just felt like being unique, because spiders don’t always have two eyes.
6. Let dry and attach to whatever you like! You can suspend them from string, sit them on a table, glue them, etc.

I love these “spider-balls” and have already gotten loads of compliments! Enjoy!