Make Your Own Pom Pom Spiders for Halloween

My wife went into one of those 'designer' decoration shops that deal mostly in over priced furniture. She commented on a chair selling for over one thousand dollars, and little pom pom spiders like the kind made in school as children for $5.99 each!

You can make an entire bowl (or web) full of pom pom spiders for the price of one, and the best part is that your children can do most of it, for some very important family time.

The first step in any good crafting project is to gather your materials. This way you don't need to run around like a chicken (or Zombie) with your head cut off, looking for the rest of your supplies during your project.

You will need the following items for this project:

1 - 2.5" black and brown pom poms available from any craft store
Brown and black pipe cleaners
A bag of assorted sized googly eyes
Hot glue (or white glue for the kids)
Sharp scissors (or pre-cut the pipe cleaners)
A bag of white or black "webbing" material (the kind you stretch out and drape) or a clear glass bowl

Glue your googly eyes onto a pom pom. As an adult, I would suggest using a TINY dot of hot glue on the back of each eye. If you have kids helping, you can either pre-glue them onto the pompoms, or you can have your children use white glue. If you do use white glue, please give them ample (24 hours) time to cool).

Cut the pipe cleaners for legs. Remember that you will be using multiple sets of pipe cleaners for your legs (as spiders are arachnids) so make sure to pack them tightly if you need to. If space on your pom pom allows for it, put the two front legs a little ahead of the other sets of legs, so that you can bend the pipe cleaners to grab whatever they will be hanging on. This part I would really suggest using hot glue for, as white glue does not always adhere the felty surface of the pom poms to the hairy surface of the pipe cleaners well.

Spread your webbing material out around the corners of your home, adhere it with sticky tack putty or masking tape, hang them from black thread, or a clear fishing line, and intertwined into the webbing. Alternatively, you can put them into a bowl with some hanging around the lip to give to happy trick or treaters as an alternative to candy. (You may want to give them some candy or yummy, healthy alternative too, otherwise you may be the target of some tricks for your lack of treats).