Fuzzy spider army

I am SO excited to finally be showing these. I am a slow crafter, and I have been working on these for a week. I'm sure someone more skilled would be able to do these in a lot less time. Here's the finished product:


Even my boyfriend thinks they are adorable!

All the supplies I used came from the Dollarama.

10 1-inch styrofoam balls (1$)
Halloween colored pipe cleaners- black, orange, purple (only showed here were the black ones, because I wasn't gonna use the other colors at first) (1$)
1 Pack of assorted size googly eyes (1$)
Fuzzy spider web net- black (1$) You could also use black yarn, which was what I was looking for until I found this.

Other supplies everyone has that I had to get since I'm only starting doing crafts:
Black craft paint (1$)
Paintbrushes (1$)
White glue (1$)
Glue gun + glue sticks (13$)

So all in all, they would cost 4$ to make 10 spiders, as I am assuming you have all of the second list.

Alright, here we go! Let's get ready to make some cute spiders!

Step 1: Paint balls black; no matter how much string you put, there will be some white spots if you don't. I found it easiest to just stick a pipe cleaner to hold the ball while painting. It was then really practical to stick that in my pen holder to let them dry.




Step 2: Cover the ball with glue. I used white glue, I knew it was gonna take a while to dry, but at least it would dry clear. Anybody got a suggestion as to what else I could've used? I thought of using the glue gun, but then realized I would be burning my fingers a lot while putting the string into place.


Step 3: Apply the string.
When I bought the spider web, I hadn't realized it was pre-made, therefore not a continuous string, but rather a bunch of string knotted together to give the spider web. I wanted long strings, so I was patient and actually undid a lot of the knots. In the end, I had 2 long pieces for every ball. It was not quite enough for all the balls, but I also had some little bits of string.

At first, I tried putting the string on with no particular pattern, but that was problematic. It slips easily on the glue, since it doesn't dry quickly, and that just made it really hard. Then I found this way of doing it:

Just start at one point and apply in a spiral. Try to press it down exactly perpendicular to the surface of the ball, or else it slips sideways and push the rest away and off the ball. I did a little more than half the ball with 1 string, then let it dry overnight (I work on my crafts in the evenings). The second half was a lot easier to apply and I no longer needed the pipe cleaner stuck in the ball to grasp it properly.

Here's the ball half done, and one completely covered:


Step 4: Add the legs.
Cut the pipe cleaner to the desired length. I did a few different lengths. Some I cut in 4, some in 3, some in 2, and for the queen spider I used 3/4 of 1 pipe cleaner. I wanted variety. I also mixed up the colors.

Step 5: Hot glue the eyes.
I was actually a trooper and looked at real pictures of spiders' eyes close up (I hate spiders...), because I wanted to reproduce as much as possible. In the end though, I just made different patterns for every spider using 8 eyes of different size for each.

And here they are once again in all they adorable glory.





The queen I think is my favorite!










I put a few with my Dollarama pumpkins! See, pumpkins and spiders can be friends... except that last one on the right doesn't seem to be enjoying himself too much :S





I am so glad to finally be done 1 Halloween craft. Tomorrow I am hopefully getting my Halloween cupcake liner topiary done (original from CraftOManiac). I went to 4 different Dollarama's before I could find some cupcake liners. I got 2 different packs of 50, and am making 2 small topiaries. I'm really hoping that will be enough, because I don't know if I will be able to get more. I can't wait to make them though!

Thanks for reading!



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