Beaded Spider Tutorial

In case my missed my guest-post (and first tutorial!) over at Tatertots and Jello last week, here it is!

Walking through a store the other day, I spied some decorative spiders ($5 apiece!) that had plastic bodies and colorful beaded legs. I really liked them but I have two rules about holiday decor: it has to be homemade and it has to be cheap. (Both components are necessary for the crafting high! And that's what it's all about, right? :) ) Besides, I thought an all-bead spider in black would be much cuter anyway and it was!

You'll need some 20-gauge wire, black seed beads (for the eyes and legs), and two sizes of larger black beads (for the head and body).

For each spider, cut five lengths of wire, about six inches long apiece. This gives you plenty of extra room to work with. String your beads onto the first wire in this order: two seed beads, smaller black bead, larger black bead.

Take the end with the seed beads and feed it back through the large beads. You'll now have two wires coming out the bottom of the largest bead.

Pull the beads taut and clip the wires with just enough room to twist the ends into a loop with your needle-nosed pliers.

For the legs, wrap the remaining four wires once around the wire between the head and body beads.

I used about 25 seed beads for each of the front four legs and about 35 for each of the back four. After stringing the beads on each leg, clip the wire close and curl it into a loop to secure the beads (and to make a cute little spider-foot!)

After all eight legs are beaded, bend them into shape and your little bead spider is complete!

And these creepy-crawlies are so versatile! Scatter them about on your mantel,

or contain them in a spooky birdcage spider-cage ($1 at Michaels!).

You could attach some to magnets, and spookify your refridgerator,

or attach them to some elastic and decorate your daughter's head!

Hooray for spiders! (The kind that aren't real, of course.) :)

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