a creepy crawly halloween

We LOVE Halloween!!! We have lots of fun halloween crafts, decorations and snack ideas to share with you over the next few weeks, but we had to kick off the season with our spider themed Halloween decor featuring ideas for your mantel, door and table. This post is also special because last year’s Halloween decor article was our very first post ever!

Last year, our Halloween decor was all about bats and this year we are all about spiders! We had a blast painting pumpkins, making spiders and weaving webs for this creepy crawly Halloween decor and it is very easy to recreate in your own home!

Door

For our Halloween door we created a gigantic spider web crawling with spiders large and small. To create the spider web we used extra thick white yarn like this cobbler’s yarn. First, we made a circle with yarn and decided where we wanted the center of the web to be. Then we created the long legs of web one by one, starting at the center circle and taping the ends to the inside edge of the door using painter’s tape. We created 12-14 strands of web all coming out of from the center circle. Next, we made the circular shape of the web by weaving pieces of yarn between the long strands until the web was complete.

To make the spiders we used halves of styrofoam balls and spray painted them black. For the large spider we used an 8″ styrafoam ball for the body and a 3″ stryfoam ball for the head. For the legs we used 3 packs of giant chenille stems cut into 8 legs. For the small spiders we used 2″ and 3″ styrofoam balls for the body and smaller foam balls or black pom poms for the head. We used black pipe cleaners for the legs. We created holes in the spiders bodies with the tip of scissors to insert the legs and then bent the pipe cleaners to form the legs. If making the spiders seems like to0 much work, you can get the same look using Martha Stewart’s Crafts spiders with a lot less effort! A big thank you to The Byrne family for letting us decorate their front door!

Mantel

For the mantel, we created a web with the same large empty picture frame we used for Christmas and Valentine’s Day, yarn and black paper. We painted the frame with two coats of purple spray paint. For the web, we used white yarn just as we did for the door, taping the ends to the back of the frame with painters tape. Once the web was complete, we covered the back of the frame with black wrapping paper, but you could easily use poster board as well. We made the spiders the same way we did for the door. For the pumpkins, we used 3 different shades of purple paint. You can buy 3 different colors or pick a dark shade of purple and lighten it with white. If you use white pumpkins or prime the pumpkins with white paint, the color will be more vivid. To complete the look we used Spanish moss along the mantel.

Table

For the table, we covered a silver tray with Spanish moss and piled the purple pumpkins in varying shades on top. We covered the pumpkins with spider web and topped them with the same small spiders we used on the door and mantel and a few extra plastic spiders for fun.

Happy Decorating!