Spider hands – a Halloween craft for toddlers

Every morning Mary Virginia takes a nap around 9 a.m. During that time I get overly-ambitious about my life and start a ton of tasks. Laundry in the washer! Muffins in the oven! Sensory bins with David! Maybe I’ll reply to some emails, plant some flowers and knit a hat! Might as well because the time feels so big and available I could just lay down and roll around in it.

Then she wakes up and all those things I started are scattered around my house half-done and stress me out for the rest of the day.

This is one of those projects. I started making these two weeks ago and finally finished them over the weekend.

Spider hands.

I can’t take full credit for this; I got the idea from this blog. (And I found the blog thanks to my friend Meredith.)

All I did was trace David’s hands, then cut out the outline of his hands and overlap them — leaving out the thumb.

I traced the overlapped hands on white paper and before cutting them out he colored the paper. He also wanted to stick dinosaur stickers on the hands. The controlling side of me cringed. Really, David? Dinosaur stickers? Show me one spider in the wild that has the image of a dinosaur on it. You can’t, there are none. Stick to the program, David.

Then I realized that this little activity wasn’t just about letting David be creative, it was also about teaching me to chill out already.

So this is what we came up with.

Spider hands halloween easy craft for toddlers

Next I affixed some googly eyes to each spider. I wanted to involve David in as much of the process as possible, so I handed David a googly eye and this is what happened. He wore this eye all day and announced, “David have EYE!”

Spider hands halloween easy craft for toddlers

After adding eyes, I glued them to construction paper, and drew a line for a web. We used them to send Halloween greetings to family.

Spider hands halloween easy craft for toddlers

I love the way they turned out; I even think the dinosaurs are a great touch.

When I showed them to David, I said, “Look, David! Spiders!”

He responded, “No, that’s a HAND, Na-ee, that’s a HAND.”

Touche, David, touche.

7 Comments

  1. Meredith October 29, 2013

    BOO-ya! Do you like that Halloween reference? Anyway great job and I’m inspired to do this today. A little late for “Halloween Greetings” but a huge applause to you for getting “Halloween Greetings” to family members. I’m lucky to remember to throw together a CHRISTMAS card once a year.

    Reply
  2. Kristie October 29, 2013

    Our spider came today and we loved it. xoxo

    Reply
  3. Jenny Ramsey October 29, 2013

    Super cute! Look at you and your totally chill, craft-doing self. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply
  4. Grammy October 29, 2013

    I got mine yesterday and I love mine, too!

    Reply
  5. nicole neesby November 1, 2013

    SO CUTE!!! I am excited for my little guy being old enough someday to do crafts. So fun!

    XO

    Reply
  6. Lisa/SyncopatedMama September 22, 2014

    This is so cute! I am totally doing it with my toddler in a day or so!

    Reply
  7. Sam // DIY Just Cuz October 6, 2015

    This is so cute, I have to do this with my daughter. I tried (and failed) to do something similar but with finger paint and that was a huge mess…literally. I think tracing her hand and then having me cut it out and decorate it (she’s only 4 months for goodness sakes) would work quite well. Thanks for sharing this neat-o idea at Welcome Home Wednesday, I’m pinning it ๐Ÿ™‚

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *