Copper wire spider and web ... ...

For Halloween I thought I'd try re-cycling a few bits and bobs to make something interesting (ish) so I made a spiders web, complete with a spider (I know, not very exciting) but it's turned out quite well, and I guess it has interest in that it cost nothing, and in the current financial climate 'free' is always good.

And if I'm honest I'm a little annoyed with the whole commercialisation of these sorts of things, it's only October and some of our local shops have had Christmas stuff in for the last week or two, and anyway I think it's much more fun to make things, never hurts to use a little imagination now and then, which is why I'll be making a few small items for the kids stockings this Christmas.


So here's what I came up with (the web) -

Spider to follow shortly.

I made the web from copper wire of various gauges, thicker for the spokes and thinner for the bits in between, all the wire has come from various old and broken electrical things, the black ring is a bit of plywood that I turned on my lathe to make it round, then I sprayed it black, the black helps to bring out the colour of the wire a little more.

To fit the spokes I drilled small holes (roughly the same size as the wire) around the inside of the wooden ring.

Like so - 

I used a 2.5mm drill bit for this.

I did use a little glue to hold the wire into the holes, super glue to be precise, mainly because it sets quickly.

The wire for the spokes - 

4 bits of wire will give your web 8 segments.

Spokes in - 

On to the next step.

I used a small bit of wire in the centre to hold the spokes in place, then I started to add the thinner wire to make up the shape of the web, but you could always use wool or string to make the web, although you may need something a little more rigid to make up the spokes, maybe long sticks or such like, or garden wire if you don't have copper wire.

Originally I had planned to use a thicker gauge of wire to make up the shape of the web, but I couldn't get it to look how I wanted, truth be told I'm still not that happy with the way the web looks.

And what I ended up with was this - 

I used a bit of wire as a hook as well.

 

Next the spider, now I did ponder how to do this for a while, and in the end I took the small coils off an old motherboard to make up the head and body of the spider, and using four lengths of the thicker wire I made up the legs, by wrapping the wire around a bit of dowel and then sticking the two coils on either end.

Like so (kind of looks spider like) - 

It even has little fangs.

Again I used a bit of super glue here and there to keep things together while I bent the legs about, I added a coiled bit of wire on the back of the spider to hide the dowel end, and in the other end of the spider I used two little bent bits of wire to make it's fangs, then I bent the ends of each leg slightly to serve as a way to hook the spider onto it's web.

And here it is all done - 

Copper critter.

Okay, so I might be stretching the imagination a little, but I think it looks like a spider, and hopefully the web will give people a clue as to what it is as well, although I've used super glue this could be a nice little project for kids (maybe older kids) but you might need to help them out a little with the glue and bending of the wire, and if you don't have a lathe to make a round frame you could always use a square one, or cut out a circle using a jigsaw.

There's not really any set way of making something like this, it's all about what you can find (in my case copper wire) and trying to make something out of it, you could use clay, play dough (if you don't mind it drying out) or wood, the only thing it costs is a little time, and perhaps some head scratching trying to figure out how to make it work.

Enjoy Halloween -

What tangled webs we weave.

Now I just need to make a copper fly.

Thanks for reading.

“Far away, in the meadow, shadows flickered in the Mirror's Maze, as if parts of some one's life, yet unborn, were trapped there, waiting to be lived.” - Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes