Pompom Craft: Spooky Spiders

When I was a child I used to love making pompoms, and have been eagerly waiting for The Boy to have the fine motor skills to get him started on them as well. I've recently spotted a lot of Christmas crafts on Pinterest using pompoms, but decided to make a more seasonal first attempt with The Boy.

These spooky spiders are actually super cute and very easy to make, they took us about half an hour from start to finish. The idea came from watching The Boy draw a spider's web in his CBeebies Art magazine.

We used:

• orange embroidery thread (we didn't have any plain wool)
• green embroidery thread
• 2 stripey pipe cleaners (we used 1 orange and white, 1 green and white)
• eye stickers (although googly eyes would work well also)
• PVA glue
• a thick sewing needle
• scissors
• 2 cardboard 'U' shapes

What we did:

1. Cut two cardboard 'U' shapes out, put them together and tied the orange thread around the middle. (Traditionally a circle is used, but it's very tricky for little ones to get the thread through the middle when it becomes very full.)
2. Wind the orange thread around the template, using around half of the thread. Don't tie or cut it off, but leave it hanging from one end to come back to later.
3. Tie the green thread around the template and wind it around, using about half.
4. Return to finish off the orange thread, and then finish the green.
5. Push the wound orange and green thread as close up to the middle as possible, bunching it up where possible.
6. Thread around 3 inches of orange or green thread through the needle, single thickness, and push it between the two cardboard shapes, from one end to the other end to be used as the 'tying thread'.
7. Slide a pair of scissors in between the two cardboard shapes and carefully snip the outside edge, taking care to hold the wool/thread in place against the cardboard template.
8. Pull the tying thread tightly together on the inside edge, this will hold the individual strands together and prevent it from falling apart.
9. Remove the cardboard and discard.
10. Next, cut the two pipecleaners in half to create four pieces. Overlap them in the middle, creating eight legs and wind two across the middle to hold them in place.
11. Squirt some PVA glue into the bottom of the spider, place the upturned legs onto this and use another strand of wool/thread to tie them on. Bend the legs slightly to resemble spider legs and leave to dry.
12. Stick on two eyes, and place your spider on a hand-drawn web!

You could hang these in the porch or the entrance hall on Hallowe'en; a colourful welcome for Trick or Treat visitors!