I have a little secret. I love spiders. My good friends know this about me and think that it is weird. I know all the rest of you are all saying “Ewww”, but it’s true. Spiders get a bad wrap. They are actually very helpful. And I am just obsessed with their webs. This art project is dedicated to my 8-legged friends and it’s is a fun one.
Our house officially went on the market this week. We did a lot of work to get it picture perfect & ready for showings. We have been packing & cleaning around the clock for weeks. With all of the cleaning that we have been doing, I have gone through a lot of paper towels. I mean a lot. This left me with a lot of empty paper towel tubes & some crafting opportunities.
We worked on a couple of crafts this week to use up some of those empty tubes & here they are.
Paper Towel Roll Pumpkin
What you will need:
An empty paper towel tube
An empty toilet paper tube
Orange paint
Green paint
Green pipe cleaners
Green construction paper
Glue
Directions:
Paint an empty paper towel tube on the inside & out using the orange paint & then let it dry.
Cut a 3″ – 4″ piece of a toilet paper roll. Cut the roll open & paint it green on both ends & let dry.
Cut around the paper towel roll forming 3/4″ strips about 3/4 of the way down.
Round fold the strips starting from the cut end & tuck into the opposite end of the tube as shown.
Roll the green tube up & stick in the opening on top. Add a little extra paint to your pumpkin if needed.
Cut leaves out of construction paper & glue them to the green roll. Cut a green pipe cleaner in half & roll into spirals. Stick them in the stem to finish off your pumpkin craft.
But we were not done there. Mai chose to paint her tube black instead of orange. She wanted to cut her tube too. We chose to make a big spider out of the black tube. In fact we ended up making two because Mai wanted her spider to have a friend.
To make the spider, paint & cut the tube the same as above. Bend the strips out & then make bends for knees & feet.
Push the uncut core down & bend the legs up around it. Add a little glue behind the knees to make the bends stay. Add googly eyes & glue a pipe cleaner to the inside of the tube.
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I know that I have told you all before, but my daughter has a love for the creepy crawlies. She likes snakes & all sorts of insects. She especially loves spiders. I am not sure what the fascination is. Perhaps it is because her favorite book is Miss Spider’s Tea Party. We read it every night. Our house is filled with drawings of spiders. The spider on the left is Miss Spider.
Yesterday while doing yard work, I saw a daddy-long-legs climbing up the side of our house.
When I told my daughter, she came running. “Look at that big daddy spider. Where is the mama?” She studied that spider. “Pick me up. I want to get closer.”
When we went back into the house, we made a quick craft in honor of our new little friend. We still have a bin full of plastic Easter eggs, so we used them for the spider’s body. We used pipe cleaners for the legs. We used 4 for each spider.
Use a hot glue gun to glue the legs to the bottom of the egg. (Adults should operate the glue gun.) Add googly eyes & draw in a smile with a Sharpie.
Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.
Last week Mai asked me if we could make a craft with sunshine, rainbows & clouds. We made a couple of cute paper plate crafts together with all of these things, but when we were finished, she looked at me and said “Mama, you forgot the spider & the spout.” I apologized for being a silly mama & told her that we could make our spider craft another day.
My daughter does not forget a thing, so of course she did not forget that I promised her an Itsy Bitsy Spider craft.
What you will need:
3 toilet paper rolls or 1 paper towel roll
Craft pom poms
Pipe cleaners
Glue
Paint
Yarn
A sheet of cardstock
Optional: construction paper, cotton balls, buttons, markers, crayons or other embellishments to make your background.
Directions:
Cut your paper rolls open lengthwise. Paint them white & let dry. Craft a spider using pom poms & pipe cleaners. I let Mai glue hers together, but then used a glue gun to make it more secure. Glue a long piece of yarn to the end of your spider. The piece should be long enough to feed through the whole spout.
Glue the painted tubes to a piece of cardstock, cut side down. Open the tubes slighty to widen your spout. Cut a small section of tube in half lengthwise & glue it so that it comes out of your gutter.
Run your piece of yarn up the pipe so that the spider dangles below the spout. Let your toddler pull the spider up & back down.
Add embellishments for a background to create a scene. Mai drew in a big bird & even dedicated her craft to me. Awww.
Thank you as always for stopping by. Please follow us on Facebook as well.
I love our family weekends. Every six weekends the stars align & my husband & I have a full weekend off together. Saturday was a gorgeous day. We took Mai on an outing to the zoo. She loved every second and we got to enjoy a rare family day together.
We had more fun plans scheduled for Sunday. We were going to take Mai to a local fair, but alas the rain came & it was a gloomy day filled with thunderstorms & flash flood warnings. We did not go to the fair that day, but rainy days can be fun days too. It had been a while since we had done any of our crafts because we have been so busy enjoying the summer. I have to admit, I was kind of excited to stay in and have a rainy day craft day with my daughter & my husband was happy to get a much needed nap.
Mai loves playing with craft pom poms. We have a huge bag of multi-colored & multi-sized pom poms. We broke them out & decided to have some fun. My daughter is a fan of insects, especially caterpillars. She likes to line up the balls & make caterpillars with them.
She said “Mama make a caterpillar too.” & that is how it all started.
Pom Pom Pets
What you will need:
Craft pom poms
Pipe cleaners
Googly eyes
Glue
Caterpillar
Spider
Lady Bug
Ant
Grass Hopper
It was my daughter that cleverly named our insects her pom pom pets. She loved them & even wanted to take them to take a nap with her.
