I love Halloween, I do, and I really love that I have kids so it gives me an excuse to do things like decorate with fake vultures (yep, you read that right, vultures, pics at the end of the post) & cover the house in glittered spiders. SO fun!

This is actually the first year the girls are really into ‘spooky’ stuff. We don’t use the word “scary” we say “spooky”. Bad dreams equal waking mom up in the middle of the night so we play offense when it comes to nightmares.

In the past Sam has swayed towards the hesitant side & the thought of a holiday dedicated to ensuing fright did absolutely nothing for her. Something changed this year though, perhaps a bit of Soph’s reckless joy has rubbed off on her & both girls are super into doing anything Halloween!

To kick off the month of all things creepy Sam, Soph & their little friend Reagan all made these awesome popsicle stick glow-in-the-dark spiderwebs to hang around the house. (idea from Pinterst via Happy Hour Projects)Because you’ll need to weave the yarn around the sticks while you’re making each circle of the web I would say this is best for 4yrs+, however younger ones can certainly still enjoy it but will probably need a bit of your help.

Supplies:

• Popsicle Sticks (preferably ones that have little notches in them, they do a lovely job of holding the yarn in place)

• Paint (glo in the dark & colors of your choice)

• Grey or White yarn (I used one with sequins in it for a little sparkle!)

• Spiders (any kind will do, I happened to have these foam sticker ones already)

Before the kids get started you’ll want to assemble the webs by first knotting the yarn in the center of one stick & then glue on the remaining two sticks so they form something that looks like an asterisk. Next, set the kids up with their paint color of choice & have them paint the webs.While these dried (encourage thin coats & it should only taking a few minutes) the kids went back to playing & then came back to put a coat of glo-paint on top. Let dry again, a hair dryer can help with this if your little goblins are feeling impatient.Now the fun part! The web is created by wrapping the yarn around each stick, at the notch, & then moving to the following stick & repeating. Once the innermost circle is completed move down to the next notch down & repeat, knot & trim at the end once your web is complete. With both Sam & Rea once we showed them how to do a few notches they had it down but honestly even if it does come out a bit wonky who cares, it’s not like we’re making Faberge eggs here people.

Finally give your web a resident by attaching your spider! (Mine were stickers but of course you could glue them on too)

Once the girls were done hiding them around the house & then cracking up uncontrollably when I would have a dramatic scared reaction after “stumbling” upon them, I attached varying lengths of yarn to one of the sticks & hung them from our livingroom mirror & lampshade.

A simple, easy, holiday craft to keep the kids happy while creating cute homemade decor that you can pull out every year, love it!

Here are a few snapshots of the other Halloween decorations I have around the house. Unlike Christmas where nothing would make me happier than covering every inch of the house in merriment for other holidays I just like to have a few decorated nooks. Festive without too much work is the goal, don’t want to blow all your oomph at the start of the holiday marathon… Pretty much everything is from Michael’s & were all dirt cheap, except the frame. It was cheap too, but from Target. Oh & don’t you  just love that little vulture creeper? He’s definitely my favorite, so weird & so awesome. Also that glass pedestal terrarium thing has come in really handy, a bunny lives in there for Easter & a reindeer for Christmas, I totally recommend getting one!

Oh! Speaking of spiders (boy that’s something I don’t say very often) if you want to make a cute wreath I pulled out our Spider Tutu Wreath from last year & it held up great! Still neon & almost as in your face when you drive by as our new Zombie Flamingos.
I have very understanding neighbors…