Giant Halloween Spider Tutorial: Craft With Your Kids Week, Project Five

This might not entirely count as a project with my kids, since mostly they just assisted in stuffing the spider once it was finished, but it took some time so I’m counting it anyways!

In past years, we’ve always made this spider that we found on Family Fun’s website a couple years ago.  A little tacky?  Yes, but I didn’t mind because this is one of the things my kids look forward to EVERY year.  “Mom, when are we going to make the garbage bag spider???”

But the problem with the garbage bag spider (besides it looking not so cute) is that my kids can’t really help all that much while making it, besides the part at the end when you stuff the spider with leaves or newspapers.

One of the great things about this felt spider is that you can take the stuffing out because in the back of it (where the bum would be if it had a bum) has Velcro so that you can open it, stuff it, or remove stuffing.
So each year you can remove the stuffing, remove the legs, wash it, roll it up, and store.

And you only have to make this once, rather than every year!

What You’ll Need:
-about 2 1/2 yards felt—it’s really wide and you might only need 2 yards, but since it’s pretty cheap, I bought extra just in case.  And you might even want to make yours bigger!
-1 sheet white felt
-couple yards velcro (you might not need this much either, but just to be safe)
-leaves, newspapers, plastic bags, fiber filling, etc to stuff the body portion
-fiber-fill or some sort of stuffing for the legs

First, fold your felt in half, then in half again.   On the left in the picture is the corner where all the folds meet:
Cut a shape similar to this.  It all depends on how big you want it.  The largest portions of the body on mine measure about 26” x 26”.  The head was a little bigger than a dinner plate.  This is not actually the real dimensions—I cut the body down after doing most of the tutorial:). 

**For the legs, cut out eight pieces of felt measuring 10” x 36”.  Set aside to use later.
Let’s sew the Velcro on the “bum”.  I sewed about 15” worth of Velcro on the opening, but you can change that however you’d like.  Just make sure you have enough space to stuff clear down into the head.  I sewed the Velcro onto the RIGHT side of the top and bottom.  Because I wanted to tuck the bottom and top under to close.

Now onto the right side of the bottom piece, I sewed on eight 4” strips of velcro, with the soft side.  I sewed them on about 1 1/2 inches away from the side to allow for a 5/8” seam allowance.  The stiff side of the Velcro actually sticks really great to the felt on it’s own without the soft side, so you could really leave out this step and just use the harder side of the velcro on the legs.

Next, make your eyes and fangs with the white felt and some leftover black felt.  Arrange how desired.

To sew the fangs on, baste up like this so they are in the right place when you sew around the entire spider.  Sew around the eyes as well.

Put right sides together of the entire spider body parts, making sure the fangs are tucked in.  Sew using a 5/8” seam allowance, starting at the velcro on one side and ending the velcro on the other side (for stuffing).  Remember that the velcro for the legs is on the right side, so put that on the inside when sewing the two pieces together.  See next 3 pics.

Clip corners where the head and body join, then turn right side out.

For the legs, use a 1/4” seam allowance, sewing the long portions together.  Turn right side out.

Turn the seam to be in the middle of the leg.

On each leg, mark a line 16” from one side, then 7” from the other.  Sew across and right on the 16” mark where my foot is pointing.  So just right across that yellow line.  Don’t sew the 7” mark yet.
Stuff from either end of that line you just sewed.  After stuffing from the side with the 7” mark, sew the 7” mark, then stuff again and sew the end closed.

Stuff from the other end, and on the larger stuffed portion’s end, sew on the stiff 4” piece of Velcro.
So your leg should look like this, with the Velcro being on the left side in this picture. Decide where you want the seam of the whole leg—either on top or bottom, and sew the Velcro on TOP.  Because you are sticking it UNDER the spider.

Now make the rest of your legs.

Connect them to the body of the spider.

Get your little helpers and stuff away.  Ours has plastic bags and fiber-fill because we have no leaves right now and we don’t get the paper.
You are done!!!
     
After we were finished, my son (oldest—7) informed me that it wasn’t very scary.
But Little Miss B and D sure liked it.  B even had her stuffed animal giving it kisses. 

And that completes our Halloween decor for the year at my house.  Here are some more things you’ll see around here:

I grew the cute pumpkin, the plate is from a local place, but I’ve seen them at Thai Pan Trading as well.

This Boo sign was super easy.  I searched for orange damask on Google images, and then pasted it into word and just changed the fonts to how I liked.  I printed it and modpodged it onto a board I painted black.  Easy!

My very favorite part of our Halloween decor from last year and this year are these bats.  I saw them last October on Country Living.  I didn’t have any stiffened felt, so I searched online how to stiffen felt and found out how to do it using Elmer’s glue—it’s easy!