Hatching Spider's Nest

Eeks! Spiders!





You will need:

• Glue, glue and more glue (We used 2 bottles!)
• 2 bowls
• Balloon
• Cheesecloth or gauze, cut into 12 (or so) 3x18 inch strips
• Fishing line
• Plastic spiders (I used a bag of spider rings from the Dollar Store and snipped the ring portion off most of the spiders with scissors.)
• Sewing needle

How to:

1. Empty glue bottle into a small bowl and dilute with water. Stir well. (I suggest emptying about a quarter of the bottle at a time.)
2. Inflate balloon and set inside other bowl to give you a stable working space.
3. Dip the strips of cloth into glue mixture and gently squeeze out excess. Spread strips flat over the surface of the balloon, leaving a few small gaps and an opening near the top of the balloon.




From the look E's face you would think this wasn't fun!



4. Let glue dry (overnight), occasionally rotating the balloon to speed of the drying process.
5. Pop the balloon and remove.

6. Use sewing needle to thread a piece of fishing line at top of nest to make a hanging hook. (Knotting one end of the line should anchor it to the inside of the nest. I used gauze and found I needed two knots to hold the line in place.)
7. Thread more line through nest and tie several spiders on to pieces. Have some spiders poke out of gaps in cloth. If using spider rings, keep some intact. I snipped a small slit in some spots on the nest and tucked the ring portion through the cloth to hold the spider in place.

Stock up on glue.

Thoughts:

This is a really neat Halloween decoration! But holy cow, does it ever use a lot of glue! We went through one full bottle and two half bottles. The cloth just soaks the glue right up. The coolest part of this craft? The awesome sound the deflating balloon made as it was pulling away from the gauze. It sounded like fireworks!

Attaching the spiders to the line was not a kid friendly activity, but I had Elliott sort the spiders for me (by color and by those who had the ring portion cut off) and it kept him involved. This was a fun one and the final result is really cute.

Elliott's Evaluation:
I like all the spiders hanging from the strings. I liked putting the cloth on the balloon. We have our nest in the kitchen so we can see it.