365 SPIDERS

#296: Cigar Spider

2012-01-01T20:06:00.000-05:00

In the great metropolis of Red Lion, PA, the city drops a cigar on New Year's Eve, so this is a fitting spider for New Year's Day. Why a cigar? Red Lion was once the cigar-making capital of the world, producing millions of cigars per month. I know...kinda hard to believe.

Materials: tube bead, brown paper, cigar label wrapping paper, round orange bead, striped E beads, amber seed beads, burgundy and orange bugle beads, silver wire

#295: John Deere Spider

2011-12-26T10:34:00.000-05:00

There is a gamut of school colors, team colors, company colors...colors, colors, colors (!) that I can use to make spiders. The yellow beads in my collection are few and far between, so I wanted to use them for a recognizable spider. I think if I had a small John Deere tractor (I'm talking Hot Wheels size...whatever that is), this spider could have had a cab on its back. But dear reader, I'm slightly exhausted by this spider project, and I will have to carefully pick and choose the largest of my creative endeavors. Not every spider will be complex. Sometimes, as I'm finding in my life right now, simplicity is a good thing!

Materials: green glass and yellow focal beads, dark and light green bugle beads, yellow and green seed beads, green wire

#294: Santa Spider

2011-12-25T12:16:00.000-05:00

Ho ho ho! The Santa spider leaves surprises wherever it goes.

Santa did not arrive at our house until very late last night (2 a.m. to be specific), and then the children arose at the utter crack of dawn (just short of 5 a.m. to be exact) wanting to open presents. So Ma in her kerchief was much disgruntled having not entered R.E.M. sleep and then finding that she forgot to add coffee to her grocery list the day before. Soon after the mayhem of torn wrapping paper; the removal of twist ties, tape, and plastic; the assembly of toys; and a breakfast of baklava, Ma laid down on the couch for an hour and a half of fitful sleep to be awakened by children throwing remote controls at one another and screaming. After a repeat of baklava and a successful cup of coffee from coffee grounds found in the grinder, Ma returned to a state of normalcy, settling down at her computer to do work that she did not complete when she should have! Merry Christmas to all, and to all...a real vacation somewhere on an uncharted island. Is that too much to ask??

Materials: ceramic Santa finding; red glass bead; red, white, and gold seed beads, red and iridescent pink bugle beads; gold wire

#293: Cinderella Spider

2011-12-24T21:55:00.001-05:00

Christmas Eve seems like a good time to jump back into my spider project, which I have neglected for weeks because of time-consuming obligations. My schedule isn't changing much, so I will do my best to stay on top of my spider project and see it to the end. Christmas is a time for magic and hope, a time when we put aside our troubles to think about the big picture and the people we love. Isn't it? And the Cinderella story is one of magic and hope, of hardship turning into happily ever after. This spider project needs a happily ever after--and I'm determined to find it.

Materials: gold-tone finding, glitter glue and enamel, gold and ice blue bugle beads, blue and transparent seed beads, gold wire

#292: Blackberry Spider

2011-11-15T10:32:00.001-05:00

If your first thought was a phone, that's just sad. Remember finding a wild raspberry bush and then going wild plucking berries and popping them in your mouth? A few years ago, my friend Jenni and I found a huge, huge section of undiscovered berry bushes along a roadside and picked enough berries that we each were able to make a batch or two of raspberry jam. Blackberries are much harder to come by and not as sweet, but they're delicious all the same.

Materials: vintage berry bead, black shell bead, black E beads, green drop beads, black and green bugle beads, purple seed beads, green wire

#291: Itsy Bitsy Spider

2011-11-15T10:26:00.001-05:00

Here's a tiny spider, sort of rain drop in appearance, in homage of one of the first songs we ever learned as children. Maybe you learned it as Eensy Weensy? If I only I had a proper water spout to take this picture. Most of my spiders are typically larger than this, if you're wondering how this compares.

Materials: blue plastic faceted beads, blue E bead, blue glass seed beads, crystal blue bugle beads, silver wire

#290: Bowlerama Spider

2011-11-11T08:07:00.001-05:00

For a spider that's made with no actual bowling miniatures or beads, I'd say I pulled this off rather well with my Dremel and some red nail polish. The dude abides!

Materials: black acrylic bead, white drop pendants, black and white striped bugle beads, red bugle beads, silver and teal seed beads, silver wire

#289: West Side Spider

2011-11-09T23:02:00.000-05:00

West Side Story is my favorite musical. I can't get the music out of my head, the choreography is amazing, and the Romeo & Juliet retelling is literally to die for. But I am also in awe of the colors and lighting. Whether done intentionally, the deep red that represents both love and anger is often paired with the bold midnight blue of many of the nighttime scenes. When you throw together phenomenal dance moves with such brilliant colors that are both dark and yet boldly bright, spectacular is taken to a whole new level. So the dark base of this spider is livened in much the same way. My spider might not have the moves, but the legs are composed of the bright and beautiful hues of an angry bruise.

Materials: metal wire pendant; metal bronze spacer bead; red, peacock blue, and blue-black bugle beads; purple and gunmetal black seed beads; gold wire.

#288: Baba Yaga Spider

2011-11-08T17:19:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite creepy folk tales is the story of Baba Yaga, a witch who flies through the air in a kettle looking for small children. She lives in a cabin on chicken legs surrounded by a fence made of skulls. The version of Baba Yaga that I first read comes from "Whistle in the Graveyard: Folktales to Chill Your Bones" by Maria Leach (my favorite book of scary short stories).

Materials: olive green and tan marble baking clay, green and gray bugle beads, olive seed/spacer beads, yellow and white E beads, mustard yellow and amber seed beads, silver wire

#287: The Blob Spider

2011-11-08T16:42:00.003-05:00

I bought a tacky pencil topper that was on clearance at the Halloween store and popped out this google eye to use for a future spider. It half makes me think of the tar monster on Scooby Doo and half a terrifying, man-eating blob. Make that 1/3 tar monster, 1/3 blob, and 1/3 Slimer of Ghostbusters fame. The blob itself is made of kelly green baking clay.

Materials: baking clay, acrylic google eye, green bugle beads, light green E beads, lime green and bright red seed beads, green wire

#286: Gum Wrapper Spider

2011-11-08T16:18:00.001-05:00

Gary Duschl with his gum wrapper chain

I always wanted to make a gum wrapper purse or a gum wrapper necklace...until I realized what a pain in the butt they are to link together! But at least I used my favorite gum labels for this spider. Black Jack black licorice gum isn't for everyone (maybe it's just for me), but there's no denying that the sharp blue and black label is charmingly retro and needs to be on a T-shirt. (If only you knew how many ideas I have for T-shirts on a daily basis.)

Did you know there's actually a Guinness world record for the longest gum wrapper chain? Well, you do now. Gary Duschl of Virginia Beach, VA, has the record-holding chain, which as of March of this year is 66,835 feet long. When I think about quitting my spider project, I think about the motivation it must take to link together more than 1.5 million gum wrappers. I would probably question my sanity, and so would you!

Materials: Black Jack gum wrappers, Modge Podge sealant, round black acrylic bead, light blue and black bugle beads, light blue E beads, black seed beads, silver wire

#285: Dreadful Spider

2011-11-08T16:04:00.002-05:00

I was thinking of simply making an African mask spider with a lot of rich, earthy browns, but when I finished the legs on this spider, I realized how much they looked like dreadlocks.

Materials: clay mask pendant, wooden disk bead, black and brick red bugle beads, sage green and brick red seed beads, gold wire

#284: Blue Lapis Spider

2011-11-04T18:03:00.000-04:00

Materials: blue (lapis?) pendant, blue acrylic bead, blue acrylic teardrop pendant, blue bugle beads, blue and black seed beads, silver wire

#283: Sea Shore Spider

2011-11-04T17:55:00.002-04:00

Shell beads are great for making unique spiders, although after making a handful already, my biggest trouble is coming up with a name that I haven't already used for my spider project!

Materials: sea shell beads, white crackle bead, iridescent mauve bugle beads, gold tone spacer beads, gold wire

#282: Emerald City Spider

2011-11-04T17:40:00.001-04:00

This delightfully green spider could use a splash of gold (and well, real emeralds), but for now, it is a member of my Oz collection.

Materials: vintage metal and acrylic pendant, green acrylic bead, green and light green bugle beads, sage green seed beads, pewter spacer beads, silver wire

#281: Sugar Skull Spider

2011-11-01T21:42:00.000-04:00

Abby's spider

Happy All Saints' Day! Here's a sugar skull spider to celebrate the Day of the Dead. It even glows in the dark. I Googled sugar skulls to try and come up with a neat design that I could sketch on this baked clay skull with Sharpie markers. It's not easy to work with such a small surface area, but I think the colors do it justice. I made a second sugar skull spider (actually, a better one!) that I sent to Abby Davis who maintains skulladay.blogspot.com.

Materials: glow-in-the-dark baking clay; permanent ink; transparent glitter sealant; plastic flowers/beads; black plastic beads; black bugle beads; coral E beads; pink, teal, and yellow seed beads; silver wire

Sculpting the baking clay into a skull

#280: Sour Grapes Spider

2011-10-31T21:45:00.002-04:00

Tonight was a night for ghosts and goblins, superheroes and princesses, even a tiny toddler dressed as Santa. A couple of times I have thought it would be cool to dress as Sour Grapes, the female nemesis of Strawberry Shortcake and friends, but probably no one would know who she is. Dark purple hair with lavender streaks, a lavender gown, and long, green gloves. I couldn't pull it off with as much flair as the woman herself, but it would still be fun. Tonight I walked my kids around as Velma. Josie was a witch because her mermaid costume was too cold, and Greta was Hermione with her warm Gryffendor robe. After a snow storm postponed our neighborhood trick-or-treating, not everyone got the message about a reschedule, so my kids got LOADS of candy from people who just needed to get rid of it. Score! They'll be eating the candy until Easter.

Materials: brass grapes finding, purple swirl bead, purple/white rondelle beads, light green plastic bead, purple and green bugle beads, lavender bugle bead shards, purple seed beads, green wire

#279: Abominable Spider

2011-10-30T23:48:00.004-04:00

Just like that--our weekend was gone. Not the way some weekends go by unnoticed because you were so busy you hardly realized how close Monday was. But because we were so focused on keeping our house warm and food cold during and after an unexpected "winter" storm that we didn't realize how little else we had accomplished all weekend long. We had planned to be climbing into Halloween costumes and going trick-or-treating, then maybe going for a 1-mile pumpkin run the next day, none of which happened. We were fortunate enough to have charged all of our electronic devices before our power went out on Saturday so that once the last of the twilight was gone and we were left with nothing but dark, we could at least hit the hay early and watch a movie or read a book before we drifted off with the heat from our warm kerosene heater.

I used all of the daylight I had to clean up my craft room (and pick up and sort a huge tray of jump rings, head/eye pins, and ear wires that I had accidentally kicked over a few weeks ago), complete some unfinished projects, and get my spiders done. Even so, our first snow could not have been a much bigger pain. It was abominable, this snow. So abominable that a spider (ornament) had to be made.

Materials: white beaded earring piece, white plastic bead, glass snowman head bead, white bugle and seed beads, silver wire

#278: Mummy Spider

2011-10-30T23:32:00.001-04:00

Today was supposed to be trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, thus this commemorative spider (somewhat). But our power was out, and the roads were unplowed, and the snow fell like crazy. So no one went out. Instead, the kids put on their costumes, and we had the neighbors over for s'mores in the dark with a s'mores maker we have but seldom use. We listened to Halloween party music on Pandora (as my phone battery died) and made the best of a Halloween that we would not have.

The mummy comes to us from the dark, from dusty torch-lit catacombs and spidery doorways, from a deep, dark, mysterious past. And sometimes, the dead are not what they seem, especially so near Halloween.

Materials: plastic mummy toy, clear plastic bugle and E beads, silver wire, muslin, Tacky Glue, ivory and tan paint

#277: Frost Fairy Spider

2011-10-30T23:22:00.002-04:00

My Minnesota family, who are used to getting their first snow in October, might not realize what an anomaly it is for Pennsylvania to have a first snow that early. I scoffed at newscasters starting on Tuesday, when I first heard that it could snow on Saturday. And even on Friday morning, with clear blue skies overhead, I doubted their prediction. But sure enough, the sky quickly clouded over and in came snow--record-breaking inches of it. It fell like wet masses of pudding on our beautiful autumn-colored trees, pulling and snapping limbs left and right. It took down power lines and left us without power for almost 24 hours. It muddied the driveway. It pissed us off, I'll tell you that much. But even in all of the chaos, the snow was very pretty and almost unnatural, its frosty tendrils clinging to a season making its way out just a little too slowly. So the frost fairy paid us a visit, her evergreen legs not quite as icy like Jack Frost's. Not quite. Not quite winter.

Materials: pearl-white plastic leaf, evergreen and gold spacer bead, plastic pearl beads, green and white bugle beads, sage green seed beads, gold wire

#276: Suncatcher Spider

2011-10-27T19:59:00.002-04:00

My spider with backlight.

After discovering some really beautiful stained glass spiders on Etsy (from VictoriaPandora), I wondered about making a version that doesn't use actual leading or stained glass. VictoriaPandora uses the Tiffany technique to make her stained glass spiders, which I known nothing about, and thus her spiders are stunning (and huge!). I had about all the fun I feel like having with solder for my spider project when I made my Harvestman spider, and I just don't have access to pretty stained glass baubles. But I do have access to cheap glass decorating marbles (thank you, dollar stores!) and liquid leading (sold at Michaels), so I took my chances with the materials and guess what? It works! Anything heavier than glass decorating marbles and the beads I typically use for my spider legs might not hold up so well with liquid leading, but this is a perfect ornamental piece for a window. Because my glass marbles are so boring, I used ceramic paint pens to spruce them up.

Stained glass spider from
VictoriaPandora.etsy.com

Materials: royal blue glass marbles; liquid leading; ceramic paint; purple and light pink bugle beads; gold, blue, purple, and orange seed beads; gold wire

#275: Resin Spider

2011-10-26T23:18:00.000-04:00

I wish I could make a true amber spider, especially amber with a bug in it, but the real thing costs a lot of money, and for now I have to keep my spider project at a reasonable cost. I saw this idea on Etsy (from ImpossibleFossils) to use resin (and a good resin dye, which I don't have) to embed things like watch parts inside. I think that's about as good as you can get without amber, so I tried it myself using a mix of food coloring and soap dye. I do have resin colorants but only opaque colors, and I don't have cabochon molds, so I used a flexible Wilton cake pop mold. Do you REALIZE the creating potential of all of the products out there? You can use ice cube trays as molds for dozens of projects, too, and they're a dime a dozen.

Materials: resin cabochon with watch parts, agate bead, acrylic amber bead, burgundy bugle beads, iridescent orange bugle beads, translucent gold seed beads, acrylic brown spacer beads, gold wire

#274: Faux Spider

2011-10-25T22:39:00.000-04:00

All things considered, none of my spiders are made with any real or expensive gems or metals, but this one certainly covers all of the bases of being entirely fake...costume jewelry to the core! A gold-plated, cheap metal earring (you have no idea how easily my Dremel put a hole through it so I could bead the spider), encrusted with rhinestones, beaded with plastic pearls, and embellished with golden glass bugle beads, gold plastic seed beads, and even fake Swarovski crystal beads. Yeah...a total fake. As faux as you go!

Materials: (see above)

#273: Tattoo Spider

2011-10-25T22:32:00.001-04:00

My Babe tattoo prior to
finishing the Northern lights.

This spider has only been under the needle once, and honestly, anything more would probably do him in! Did you know that 38% of all Generation Yers (that's the generation following mine, so it's not like I'm ancient yet) in the United States have a tattoo? They're so common that even Mattel introduced a tattooed Barbie this past year. My favorite tattoo is my Babe the Blue Ox. I wear it like a little piece of home on my right arm, but when I was at Epcot this spring with the family, it was brought to my attention that it's also my Chinese zodiac sign. Whatdyaknow?! I had just never made that connection.

Materials: peach shell beads, water slide tattoo, clear sealant, black glass spacer, peach bugle beads, peach and black seed beads, pink copper wire

#272: Petit Four Spider

2011-10-23T21:39:00.000-04:00

This scrumptious little spider was inspired by an old earring piece that looked strikingly similar to a piece of marzipan, so I made this spider all the more delectable with splashes of bright orange and gold.

Materials: clip-on earring piece, orange-painted metal rose post earring, green baking clay, painted clay bead, orange wooden disc spacers, gold and orange seed beads, ivory bugle beads, gold wire

#271: Anastasia Spider

2011-10-22T14:48:00.002-04:00

The deep blue, almost purple, and gold of the beads make me think of Russia, the Romanovs, and Fabergé designs.

Materials: blue-dyed shell pendant, blue faceted round bead, royal blue and gold bugle beads, royal purple seed beads, gold spacer beads, gold wire

#270: Mosaic Spider

2011-10-21T22:24:00.002-04:00

For the mosaic spider, I used some really small squares of glass. They were probably about a quarter inch in diameter. Then I used some nippers to break them all in half. I arranged them on a table first, then glued them on a flat round bead. I used the same bead I used for my moon landing spider. I dug out a small tub of tile grout that I have in my craft room (do you doubt there's actually something out there that ISN'T in my craft room?), and filled in the spaces around the pieces of glass and wiped the grout off the top of the glass pieces. This was my first experience doing any kind of mosaic. I've had plans for some time to make some cool mosaic rocks for the garden and have the kids each make one, so I'm glad I had a first experience to see how things would turn out before we attempt bigger projects. This was seriously so easy that I want to mosaic my whole house!

Materials: stone bead, stained glass squares, grout, green glass bead, brown glass bead, butterscotch and brown E beads, brown and butterscotch seed beads, blue and green bugle beads, green wire

#269: Flocked Spider

2011-10-20T23:44:00.001-04:00

A few months back, I wanted to make a flocked spider but couldn't find any flocked beads at the time. I ran into these blue ones at Jo-Anns the other day.

Materials: flocked teal beads, silver spacer, teal bugle beads, teal E bead, teal seed beads, gray spacer beads, silver wire

#268: Red Termite Spider

2011-10-19T11:47:00.000-04:00

Next to working with metal beads, I love working with wood beads. Wood makes the spiders look more realistic and has a natural simplicity. And of course, metal gives the spiders the look of something almost alien and robotic, other-worldly. I think that I typically make a lot of blue spiders, so I try to get away from that from time to time.

Materials: round and tear-drop red wooden beads, red/black/white striped E beads, red glass seed beads, black and red striped bugle beads, gold wire

#267: Pumpkin King Spider (#3 in Tim Burton series)

2011-10-18T13:55:00.000-04:00

Those who were expecting Jack may be a tad disappointed, but I didn't feel like I should wholly duplicate Jack Skellington, giving the spider all of his attributes but with extra legs. So I used a pumpkin head. There's a very memorable pumpkin scarecrow at the beginning of Sleepy Hollow that somewhat inspired this, and Jack's title as Pumpkin King is very fitting. I was lucky to find black and white striped bugle beads, which really were essential to the legs of this spider. And the rest I was able to paint.

Materials: orange clip-on earring piece, gunmetal plastic E bead, puffy bat sticker, white stone bead (painted), black wired ribbon, black and white striped bugle beads, translucent white and orange seed beads, silver wire

#266: Beech and Blue Spider

2011-10-17T20:06:00.001-04:00

When I took the kids to the Samuel Lewis State Park on Saturday, Greta had a lot of fun walking around the park and looking at the small signs identifying each tree. Beneath the beech tree were many, many seed pods that looked like small man-eating plants. I visualized the seed pod like a bead cap over a glass focal bead or a faceted, gem-like focal bead, which is ultimately how I ended up making this spider, but it doesn't exactly look thematic. I wanted shiny blue glass with matte, natural browns, and that's how this spider turned out.

Materials: beech tree seed pod, blue glass beads, wooden bead, dark red and blue glass bugle beads, brown and blue E beads, dark red and blue seed beads, silver wire

FYI: A Spider-Making Tutorial on Instructables.com

2011-10-16T22:14:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note for people who read my blog but maybe don't see my Atomic Rose Boutique page on Facebook or follow me on Twitter (spiderlady365): If you'd like to try making spiders yourself, check out this spider-making tutorial on Instructables.com. If you have questions or run into trouble, feel free to start a dialogue. I'd love to make the Instructable as useful as possible.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Beaded-Spider-Tutorial/

#265: Corpse Bride Spider (#2 in Tim Burton series)

2011-10-16T18:54:00.000-04:00

I am not one to miss an important date when it comes to my spider project, although I usually celebrate with some kind of short video. Day 100 was a celebration spider. Day 182/3 was my halfway point. Day 200 was a moon landing spider. And today starts the countdown from 100. By tomorrow, I'll be working in double digits rather than triple in my goal to finish 365 spiders.

I am beginning to wonder...will it be difficult for me to let go of this project? I mean, I really could use the time for other things. This project has consumed a massive number of hours and supplies, so I look forward to saving money, too. But will I experience what most mothers feel when their young leave the nest? Will this have been a project that created in me a new identity or maybe just an undiscovered one, and thus, will I feel like I have to let it go or I won't belong to a puzzle that has been holding me in place this past year? These are all things that I contemplate as I now get closer and closer to finishing.

Are you contemplating a 365 project? I feel like I've been witnessing in support of this concept for months now, encouraging would-be or rusty artists to put their hands to work again on the thing that they love. It is a life-changing experience after all, especially if you follow through and finish it. And don't tell me, "I'm not creative." Not creative? You people who use these words, are you robots? Have you nothing to offer this world? Is there nothing you love to do? Of COURSE you're creative. We're all creative. And I can't begin to tell you how many doors and windows have been opened because I chose to take this journey. Each of us is like no other person, and when we bring our creations together collectively, something new is born that could not have existed without the efforts of each and every person. On our own, when we choose to do the thing we love over and over, we see how it changes us and makes us into better people. I guess I will just find something new to keep me growing once I finish my spider project in January.

So for the Corpse Bride spider, the part of the movie that sticks with me most is the moment that Victor puts his future bride's ring on a twig in the forest, and the corpse bride's arm comes shooting out of the dirt and snow, detached from the rest of her body. So I wanted a spider with her hand, but I had to envision something for the earth. I decoupaged some striped worms on the black-painted pot, and I dabbed some blue-painted gauze around the hand where the bride's wispy blue lace dress sleeve once was, and I tried to keep with the dismal blacks and grays of most of Tim Burton's films. The exception in The Corpse Bride is the presence of a lot of icy blue.

Materials: plastic skeleton hand, jump ring and Swarovski crystal for ring, blue-painted gauze, silver baking clay, mini terra cotta pot (painted and decoupaged), gray and black bugle beads, blue and gray seed beads, silver wire

#264: Lavender Blue Spider

2011-10-15T09:36:00.001-04:00

Does that song by Burl Ives ever get stuck in your head? "Lavender blue, dilly dilly..." Well, it makes for a cute spider.

Materials: broken blue-tone clip-on earring, blue floral clay bead, purple bugle beads, purple seed beads, turquoise blue E beads, silver wire

#263: Indian Corn Spider

2011-10-15T09:33:00.002-04:00

I was making a spider as a gift the other day and happened to choose colors that were exactly reminiscent of Indian corn, so I recreated the spider, replacing some beads that would be more earthy and natural. I chose beads that would make for a lean body, like a stalk of corn, and I etched corn into the focal wood bead.

Materials: wood beads, plastic yellow bead; brown E beads; round yellow beads; black, brown, and red bugle beads; red, bone, and mustard yellow seed beads, gold wire

#262: Spicada (Cicada Spider)

2011-10-15T09:21:00.000-04:00

A question I get a lot about my spider project other than "Is it hard to come up with ideas every day?" is "Do you really make a spider every day?" Sometimes I miss a couple of days on my blog while I'm making spiders or I'm making multiple spiders at a time that all require time for glue to set or paint to dry, and I end up not posting a spider every day, but trust me I'm making one every day. So this one and the two that follow were in the works or I couldn't post (for whatever of life's reasons prevent me from it at a particular moment) and are getting posted all at once.

Spicada took time. I started with a completely different body and was attempting to plate the body with pieces of folded aluminum. That was a giant headache. And I had wings that I wanted to use for it that I started to entertain as possibilities for a different insect, which is when I dumped out my jar of plastic bugs and stumbled upon the kind of body I had been looking for to use for the cicada. From there, I painted the plastic, sanded the ridiculous gold off of the wings and painted and added patina to them, and I even made a little metal head armor type thing for the bug's head. I wanted it to look very metallic and old, and I think I eliminated the plastic look altogether. And of course, I had to drill holes for wiring the legs, and I drilled through my finger...again...and had to take care of first aid before continuing, and the I wired a couple of giant green eyes. Cicadas have those tell-tale bug eyes. I've seen them red, black, and green. The spicada has alligator green eyes, like this photo I found of a cicada.

Okay, so the wings aren't very cicada-ish, but this is a spicada! Spicadas are different, alright?

Materials: plastic bug body, metal wing pendants, metal aluminum finding, green faceted beads, head pins, gray bugle beads, multi-color muted metallic seed beads, pewter ridged seed beads, silver wire

#261: Terminator Spider

2011-10-12T09:55:00.000-04:00

As an unstoppable machine with glowing red eyes, the terminator is downright frightening. It's probably a good thing that he no longer vocalizes without his facade. The Austrian accent coming from the cold, hard mechanics under Arnold's epidermis might have lended more to a Johnny 5 vibe than a robot programmed to do very little but kill everything in its path.

The eyes and mandibles on this spider are very different from what I typically do with a spider. It was complicated to adjust the headpin/red bead/eyelet combination into the small shaft of a piece of computer disk drive that I used for the spider's body, but I eventually got it to work.

Materials: computer disk drive component, eyelets, round red glass beads, head pins, gunmetal and silver bugle beads, silver seed beads, plastic pewter spacer beads, silver wire

#260: Candy Corn Spider

2011-10-11T00:04:00.000-04:00

Candy corn--I can take it or leave it. But I love those classic colors of white, yellow, and orange. Forget the pumpkin and bat shapes. Forget the chocolate flavor. Why can't candy companies leave a good thing alone?!

I love the whole month of October. In my family, it's cram-packed with birthdays and anniversaries, but it's such a time of change, too. There is a sharp edge to the air, cold and clean, and the farmers turn up all sorts of harvesting smells that remind me of growing up in the country. People begin to nestle into their homes, leaving behind their hot, crazy summer schedules. We turn on our ovens for baked goods. We throw a log on the fire. And you know that winter is just around the bend when you're driving through a neighborhood and suddenly smell someone's wood stove, or you hear the low chorus of geese flying overhead. October is a time for quiet. We get ready for a season of family and warmth, of tradition and thanksgiving, of memories and tidings.

Another thing I love about October is the eerie dark as it presses down on us a little earlier. We nurture our kid fears and make-believe in monsters and slithery things in the woods. We nuzzle under blankets and watch scary movies. We make up stories and push our friends into dark rooms. I love thinking up Halloween costumes and looking for the Great Pumpkin. I love watching little kids go door to door, lifting their pillowcases for candy and too shy to utter words, turtlenecks and sneakers under sparkly princess dresses, padded muscles and plastic light sabers. I love digging through my kids' candy stashes once they've returned exhausted from trick-or-treating with runny make-up and costumes askew. If you think you're only creating memories for your children, you're wrong. If you're all set to go bah-humbugging through the season, you'll miss out on a slight tugging of your heartstrings, a gentle soothing hum in the well-being of your soul, and other warm, gooey feelings. Get out a stack of construction paper, and make oak leaves and paper chains with the kiddies. Play a game of Ghosts in the Graveyard. If you're my dad, put on a scary blowfish mask and hide in a crawl space in the basement until your kids innocently come downstairs to watch TV in the spare bedroom.

Where was I again? Ah, yes. Candy corn...and warm happy autumn/Halloween thoughts.

Materials: orange wood pendant, yellow glass beads, orange faceted glass beads, orange memory wire, translucent white bugle beads, orange wooden disk beads, yellow seed beads, gold wire

#259: Yorick Spider

2011-10-10T08:38:00.000-04:00

"Alas, poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio." Hamlet's words (which are part of a much more elaborate speech), uttered in a graveyard while he holds the skull of a court jester he knew as a child, are well-known as a meditation on the fragility of life. The image of Hamlet holding the skull is used in many humorous contexts, making the words even more famous. Is it the powerful image of a skull, something dead and revolting, in the hands of something so full of life that piques our innermost fears and cannot satisfy our curiosity about the eventual death of us all? And what is it about the physical pieces of us we only see in death, our skull and bones, that we have embraced as images of horror and disgust...and awe?

Materials: painted resin skull, plastic lace, red wooden disk spacer, carved bone bead, burgundy and brown seed beads, gray and ivory bugle beads, rusted wire

#258: Beetlejuice Spider

2011-10-09T19:18:00.001-04:00

An image of the real Beetlejuice
sculpture that I used to create my spider

Every time I tried to think about making a Tim Burton spider, too many images came to mind. Mr. Burton's fantastic artwork and vision have embellished so many movies by now that it's just impossible to make a spider that embodies all of Burton's work. But this first spider in a potential series was the first idea to pop into my head because I remember so vividly in Beetlejuice when the sculptures come to life and are dragging themselves or skittering across the floor. And when I looked for images of the sculptures on Google, well lo and behold, this sculpture looks exactly like a spider! I blended granite and black baking clay together for the body of the spider, but in keeping with all of my spiders, I made sure to bead at least part of it. It has rather odd spider legs--nothing like what I typically do with a spider. But that's also the beauty of Tim Burton. We're often looking at something that only faintly resembles anything real.

I have plans for at least another Tim Burton spider, but it's an ambitious plan, so we'll see. I'm staying away from Batman because I feel like Batman is more about a dark super hero than Mr. Burton. But I'm toying with Sleepy Hollow and I suppose I should also consider The Nightmare Before Christmas. There is a lot to think about. Do any of you have any suggestions? I want to stay away from copyrightable characters, so no Jack Skellington et al. But I would love to hear some ideas.

Materials: black and granite baking clay, rusted wire, black bugle beads, black seed beads

#257: Hellraising Spider

2011-10-08T18:24:00.000-04:00

Pinhead from Clive Barker's Hellraiser

If this isn't the creepiest spider I've made so far, then I beg you to differ. I was downstairs looking through my clay molds for a hand for a future spider (and I actually decided against the hand anyhow) and grabbed a mold for making a doll, complete with all body parts. Now, I'm not all hearts and unicorns, so I didn't buy this doll mold to make an adorable clay baby with curly cupid hair and rosy cheeks; instead, I thought "zombie baby." But today when I pulled it out, I thought "Pinhead." Who knows why it was the first thing to come to mind. Maybe because I was already toying with some really cool black teardrop seed beads to use for eyes on another project and could see them used for a clay doll's head? I had just a smidgeon left of shimmery opal-white clay to use for his skin tone, and I have lots of different colored memory wire to snip into pieces for his head. And then I rifled through my things and found a bead cap that I could paint black to use for his collar. At Michaels, I had to pick up more beads anyhow, so I grabbed some hematite spacer beads for the leg joints. Pinhead is very much a leather and metal kinda guy (and he can't really help his bizarre S/M body suit), so the black and silver and gunmetal and the pale, pale skin all fit together just perfectly. (I love it when a spider comes together perfectly, even when it takes all day!)

Did you read that last paragraph and ask yourself, "Who is Pinhead?" I saw "Hellraiser" when I was about 13 or 14 years old, and it was by far the scariest, most disturbing horror movie I had ever seen. A ridiculously short summary of the plot (my interpretation) of a Hellraiser movie is this: There's a cube-shaped puzzle that if solved opens the gates of hell. The Cenobites (one of whom is Pinhead), these weird S/M demons or guardians of sorts, are hell-bent (I couldn't not use this pun) on keeping the puzzle solvers in hell and inflicting some very serious pain on them. Maybe this movie has nothing on movies like "Saw," but I wouldn't know. Hellraiser pretty much kept me from watching anything more than the tame average horror flick. I do regret watching "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with a heaping plate of spaghetti when I was in college and later watching the remake of "Dawn of the Dead" when I was pregnant with Josie, but few movies can compare to Hellraiser. And this seems like a very appropriate spider for the season (if you're not all about Indian corn, smiley-faced scarecrows, and candy corn window clings). For some, Halloween isn't just one day a year.

Materials: black focal bead, black-painted metal bead cap, shimmery white baking clay, black teardrop seed beads, silver memory wire, black bugle beads, silver seed beads, hematite spacer disks, silver wire

#256: Velma Spider

2011-10-07T19:44:00.000-04:00

First of all, no, I am not going to make a series of Scooby Doo spiders. Well, unless I really run out of ideas. The last piece of my Velma Halloween costume came in the mail yesterday--orange baseball socks. And I almost dressed as Velma for my spider-making workshop at the library last night but then thought I might come off a tad too weird and decided against it. (But how many times do you really get to dress up for Halloween??)

For the workshop, I hadn't planned to actually make a spider with the kids until Gina (the librarian) suggested it, and I found myself scrambling for the right beads. Me, the perfectionist, the type of person who can never simplify--I had picked out my beads in about 3 minutes, and they just so happened to be the colors of Velma. Velma is so in tune with autumn with her rootbeer-colored hair and (depending on which version of Velma you're used to) her orange sweater/socks and burgundy skirt/shoes. And yet, Velma gets passed back and forth between the members of the gang like Aunt Edna's fruit cake. She is always the fifth wheel. So Velma, this spider is for you. You're obviously the brains of the bunch (even if you tend to be a bit of a know-it-all) and the one everyone depends on to crack the case.

And when you see me this Halloween in my Velma costume, you might see the spider, too.

Materials: brown wooden beads, orange glass bead, burnt orange seed and E beads, peach seed beads, iridescent brown bugle beads, gold and silver wire

#255: Workshop Spider

2011-10-06T23:45:00.000-04:00

Tonight's spider is a bit unique in that it has somewhat already been done (see Day 208: Observatory Spider) but with some different beads, and it was used as a sample for a group of teens that showed up at my local library for a how-to session on making beaded spiders.

I have become so used to making a spider every day that I didn't realize how common making a spider had become...for ME. But it was a completely different ball game showing a group of other people with little to no beading experience how to do it. The group was very patient with me as I went around to help with various parts of the project (and thank goodness I had help from the event coordinator and my friend Susan!). Perhaps the most difficult task for others was finishing each leg, and I had forgotten that it took me a bit of time to get used to using jewelry tools when I first started, too.

My friend Susan took pictures of everyone's spiders, and I'm very excited to share those pictures when they are available. Everyone had such neat ideas about what their own spider should look like. The only boy in my group had seen my meteor spider on my blog from a couple of days ago and wanted to make something similar. Many of the kids chose old clip-on earrings that I had saved and and made some very unique spiders. And one girl was so excited about learning to make her spider that she planned to go with a friend on the weekend to buy some beads so she could show her how to do it!

If anyone who was at tonight's class is coming back to the blog for instructions on making the spiders, visit the Instructables web site for my tutorial. Here is the link:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Beaded-Spider-Tutorial/

#254: Aughra Spider

2011-10-05T21:46:00.000-04:00

The name Aughra probably doesn't ring a bell, but if I tell you that she's the ogre-like seer in The Dark Crystal who removes her eye and holds it in her hand in order to see something closer, you'll probably remember her right away. She is an astronomer who maintains a huge "orery" that shows all of the worlds surrounding the three suns, which enables Aughra to predict the Great Conjunction, the joining of the three suns. This is probably more than you care to know if you have never seen The Dark Crystal, but the inspiration for this spider is Aughra's eye and the inner workings of the orery. Aughra is probably the most memorable character from The Dark Crystal and plays an important role in turning the story around in favor of the Gelflings.

It's possible that the watch piece that I used for this spider would work with a new battery, but I didn't check to see before making the spider.

Materials: watch piece, gear findings, doll eye, gold bugle beads, silver and gunmetal spacer beads, copper spacer disks, gold spring, gold wire

#253: Meteor Spider

2011-10-04T22:53:00.000-04:00

Who can forget killer alien spiders landing on Earth in diamond-encrusted rocks, then spilling into the rural Wisconsin woods and growing to the size of Volkswagens (literally! I mean that's what they used to make the spiders--Volkswagen beetles), their shiny red eyes like glowing blood blisters in the trees? Giant hairy spiders were the stuff of my nightmares after I watched the 1975 B-movie "Giant Spider Invasion." We're talking about hairy mechanical monsters terrorizing the streets, swallowing up humans like slippery noodles and then splooshing their guts back into the road. See? Now it's the stuff of YOUR nightmares. A meteor spider had to be made, maybe just as a cathartic measure. Maybe that one day means I will hold a spider in the palm of my hand and think nothing of it. But I highly doubt it.

Materials: painted metal slider pendant; painted metal mesh bead; gray bugle beads; gray spacer beads; teal, sage green, and burgundy seed beads; silver wire

#252: Black Lodge Spider (#1 in Twin Peaks series)

2011-10-03T16:11:00.000-04:00

I was planning to make a Twin Peaks spider, yes. But as any Twin Peaks enthusiast knows, it's impossible to find just one symbol (or a couple) that embodies the whole mystical enchilada that is Twin Peaks. The show is a gold mine of symbols and mysteries. So I have every intention of making a few Twin Peaks spiders and possible a very cool display piece to put them on.

For this first spider, I was excited to have a use for a garnet-red owl bead and this hypnotic wooden bead. In Season 2, Episode 11, Deputy Hawk tells Agent Cooper about the White Lodge and the Black Lodge: "The Black Lodge is the shadow self of The White Lodge, a place of dark forces that pull on this world. A world of nightmares: shamans reduced to crying children; angry spirits pouring from the woods; graves opening like flowers." Owls, which can represent both wisdom and evil, appear throughout the show but especially whenever there is a UFO sighting. They are the creatures of old Indian tales. Agent Cooper is told by The Giant (after Cooper has been shot) that "the owls are not what they seem," a mysterious phrase of which Cooper never discovers the meaning. And it is known that Laura Palmer was terrified by owls after an attack almost killed her. And if you want a spoiler...the last scene of the brief two-season television show features a flying owl.

As for other symbols in the television show, among them are the color red and circles, both of which are represented with this spider. Red appears throughout and is most memorable as the red velvet curtain in Agent Cooper's dreams. Circles--such as the ceiling fan in the Palmer home--sometimes symbolize magic. There are also various totems that appear throughout Twin Peaks (the locale), and I think this spider is somewhat of a totem.

Materials: black and natural wood bead, red garnet owl bead, flat red wood spacer bead, black glass bugle beads, round wood spacer beads, dark maroon seed beads, rusted wire

#251: Beachcomber Spider

2011-10-02T12:21:00.000-04:00

I removed the flat, round shell pieces from a necklace, but I probably should have left it alone. The pieces have been practically useless for any project I've attempted to use them for. For this spider, I wired them together to create a spider-like shape, but it was really difficult to hide the holes that I wired. Regardless, the shell pieces and the other shell beads that I used lend themselves nicely to this spider.

Materials: flat shell pieces, oval shell bead, shell E beads, peach seed beads, iridescent dusty mauve bugle beads, silver wire

#250: Silver Bullet Spider

2011-10-01T15:14:00.000-04:00

Materials for the silver bullet spider

Eat your heart out, Corey Haim. Remember when you dropped that silver bullet in the middle of a werewolf attack? You went through all of the trouble of melting down your sister's necklace. You knew you only had one shot. You didn't practice. That's what you get. Maybe you should have made a silver-tipped rocket. You seemed very effective when you shot him in the eye with a rocket! And I think "The Silver Rocket" could still have been a best-selling Stephen King novel. Or maybe if you were an engineer in a modern-day steampunk retelling (remake), you could have constructed a silver robotic spider to bite the werewolf. It sort of takes YOU out of the equation. Yes, the concept of a silver bullet spider--much more cool.

Materials: oval grooved silver bead, silver spacer, medium silver bead, small round silver beads, silver seed beads, silver bugle beads (two types), silver wire

#249: Golden Acorn Spider

2011-09-30T22:54:00.000-04:00

All I can say is...YES, I finally found a decent acorn for this spider. It was a bit shabby, and I had to lurk in my neighbors' back yards to find it, but I will do many things in the name of art, and it's no news that I'm a bit odd about my spiders. So I missed the true descent of autumn by a handful of days, but the true beauty of the season isn't really visible here in PA until about mid-October. Having said that, let this spider be fall's welcome. Bring on the apple butter and apple cider, the hay bales and scarecrows, the nutty, fermenting tinge to the air, the pale blue sky and the yellow blades of grass. This is also the time for warm soups in crock pots, cocoa, bonfires, and hayrides. It's really the best time of the year.

Materials: painted acorn with patina, brass squirrel charm, green and orange bugle beads, gold seed beads, tan plastic beads, gold wire

#248: McFeely Spider

2011-09-30T22:42:00.001-04:00

Fred McFeely Rogers was quite possibly the most wonderful man to set foot on this planet. I can remember watching him on television with my kindergarten classmates, and I can remember him singing "Happy Birthday" to Henrietta Kitten on the television in my labor and delivery room on the morning that Greta was born. Those of us who began half a lifetime of listening and watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood on public television probably learned some very important values from Fred Rogers' gentle teachings, and when he left us in 2003, he left behind a legacy of kind words, caring, calm patience, and unending love. I guess it's a bit odd to pay tribute to Fred Rogers with a spider, but only the greatest of the great make it into my spider collection, and Fred is the cream of the crop!

Materials: brass Pittsburgh trolley token; red sweater button; red plastic heart bead; light blue bugle beads; red, blue, and yellow seed beads; gold wire

#247: Arsenic Spider

2011-09-29T01:14:00.000-04:00

I bought some really great wire ribbon at Michaels that SCREAMS Tim Burton, but in my attempt to start work on an actual Tim Burton spider, I became frustrated with a different method for creating spider legs. What I ended up with were wiry frayed pieces of ribbon that I was able to work into this spider. I've been wanting to use this skeleton lady cameo for a spider, and nothing was jumping out at me until I had these bits of ribbon. This spider brings lots of images to mind: haunted mansions, parlors, dead rich aunts (I don't know why), and I've always loved that play (Arsenic and Old Lace) about the two old women poisoning lonely men with arsenic in their wine, then burying them in the cellar, which is where my idea for naming this spider came from.

Materials: skeleton cameo, round black bead, rusted wire, ribbon pieces, black and ivory bugle beads, black and ivory seed beads, silver wire

#245 and #246: Glinda and Elphaba Spiders (#4 and #5 in Oz series)

2011-09-29T01:04:00.001-04:00

Perhaps if you've read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, you have a better understanding of how Elphaba came to be who she is. Best friends with Glinda, she eventually (in Maguire's telling) resents Glinda for giving Dorothy the ruby slippers. Never underestimate a woman and her shoes. Antagonists are always more fun, so Elphaba really steals the show in Maguire's series. The Glinda of MGM Studios fame is really unforgettable in her pink bubble and her enormous poofy, glittery dress, but I prefer Elphaba's mode of transportation and more practical attire.

Materials for Glinda: faux opal pendant, Swarovski crystal bead, Swarovski crystal crown, white-painted star beads, pink "poof" beads, assorted pink bugle and E beads, silver wire

Materials for Elphaba: green/black beads, painted toy safety cone for hat, black glass spacer bead, assorted green bugle and E beads, silver wire

#244: Goofy Goober Spider

2011-09-25T21:41:00.000-04:00

Spongebob is a staple in our house. We have watched the movie so many times that we have memorized an abnormal number of quotable lines. I can tell you that for a couple of years before the movie came out (and before our first-born was old enough to enjoy Spongebob), we wondered 'What's all of the hubbub about Spongebob Squarepants? A kid cartoon?' Oh, no no no. Trust me on this if you haven't been converted. Spongebob is for everyone's inner dork, and it doesn't matter how old you are. Those striped sport socks? Spongebob in underwear? That's just the jumping off point. It only gets better from there.

Materials: yellow sponge; white plastic Shrinky-Dink; yellow and ivory bugle beads; yellow, ivory, red, and blue seed beads; gold wire

#243: Window Cling Spider

2011-09-25T17:17:00.000-04:00

Craft idea from http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/sticky-spiders-1024691

Family Fun magazine put this idea into my head with this craft project from their current issue.

I had fabric paint that I bought to put on the bottom of socks when my kids were small so they could have slipper socks that would keep them from slipping. Well, like many good ideas that I have...let's just say I have plenty of fabric (puffy) paint. I used several colors and swirled them together on a piece of plastic (only because I don't have any wax paper right now). I laid my craft wire, curved for the most part how I would want the legs to be when the paint dried, and waited a couple of days for the paint to dry. If you use enough fabric paint (which I think I should have used a bit more of), the beaded legs don't add enough weight to pull your spider away from a window. Just breathe some warm moist air onto the back of the spider before pressing the body against any window or mirror, and it will stick.

Materials: fabric paint; orange, yellow, and green bugle beads; orange, yellow, green, gold, and purple seed beads; silver wire

#242: Hedgehog Spider

2011-09-24T09:26:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to be so cute and yet so ferocious? Yes, if you're a hedgehog spider.

I stared at this half of a black walnut shell for months wondering what it could be as a spider. It isn't quite spiny enough for a porcupine (which has already been done), it sort of has a brain-like quality but the zombie spider has been done, too. At some point yesterday, I looked at it again and saw a hedgehog. Without the legs, what a great hedgehog kids' craft this is!

Materials: walnut shell, baking clay, brown and red bugle beads, brown and black seed beads, black drop bead, rusted wire

#241: Chocolate Orange Spider

2011-09-22T09:22:00.000-04:00

What a perfect symphony of flavors are chocolate and orange, and I think Tootsie Pops must have started it all. Now you can buy chocolate-orange everything. But I still mourn the day that Celestial Seasonings discontinued Bavarian chocolate orange tea. It was the most divine tea on the planet. My life is all about discontinued uniquities. I fall for the strangest of the strange...and then they're gone. So enjoy this chocolate orange spider while it lasts.

Materials: marbled ceramic bead, head pin, brown and brass spacer beads, orange glass bead, metal fibers, orange and iridescent orange bugle beads, orange seed beads, orange glass bicone beads, gold wire

#240: Archival To Catch a Thief Spider (#7 in Hitchcock series)

2011-09-21T16:05:00.000-04:00

Figuring out which physical/symbolic elements should go into a Hitchcock spider takes some time, and "To Catch a Thief" has maybe been the most difficult. I had this idea for a black glove but initially couldn't find a small glove or a glove charm that wasn't a baseball glove. But I was lucky one day when I was in Michaels browsing the Industrial Chic findings and came across a gold glove/hand, which I knew I could just paint. And I was double lucky while in the park one day with Josephine, who spotted some plastic toy car tires in the mulch. It was the perfect body piece for this spider once I touched it up with paint to get rid of the plastic look. (Cary Grant spends much of the movie skidding around with Grace Kelly in his Sunbeam Alpine [yeah, I had to look it up] searching for a burglar who's been impersonating him.) And I have a bunch of rhinestone pieces from broken costume jewelry that worked well for the stolen jewels; specifically, I had an earring that was just the right size and look.

Also, it does not escape my attention that Cary Grant was left-handed and the "glove" I used for this spider is left-handed. And why would I point this out if I wasn't left-handed, too!

Previous Hitchcock spiders are:
Vertigo (Day 50)
The Birds (Day 98)
Dial M for Murder (Day 106)
North By Northwest (Day 114)
Rear Window (Day 145)
Psycho (Day 159)

Materials: gold metal glove pendant, plastic tire, metal letters, rhinestone earring, iridescent lavender and iridescent black bugle beads, copper spacers, purple seed beads, rusted wire

#239: Writing Spider

2011-09-21T09:27:00.000-04:00

A writing spider in my garden.

Not until Russ and I went to North Carolina for a vacation a few years back did I see my first writing spider, and its body was the size of a quarter! A couple of years ago, when I was living in Felton, PA, I came across another one in my neighbor's garden...quite literally; I walking into its web and then lost track of the spider. And to my surprise, the other day my daughter showed me that we had one in the garden just to the side of our house in our lavender. I've been keeping an eye on it to see if it's growing and to see the progress on its web. Writing spiders are an amazing sight when you're used to the everyday variety.

Materials: black metal spacer pendant (hand painted); yellow, brown, and iridescent black bugle beads; black, amber, and mustard yellow seed beads, silver wire

#238: Dorothy Spider (#3 in the Oz series)

2011-09-20T22:57:00.000-04:00

I am continuing my Oz series of 6 (the fearsome four along with Glinda and Elphaba) with Dorothy, whose clashing country blue gingham and brilliant ruby red have been the magical color combination we'll never forget, thanks to MGM Studios. Over the rainbow, skies are blue. Oh, and I didn't forget Toto, Dorothy's pet spider. He's somewhat confined to a picnic basket in this set.

Previous Oz spiders are Day 152: The Tin Woodsman and Day 190: The Not-So-Cowardly Lion.

Materials: blue gingham fabric-covered bead, white enamel painted bead cap, pewter bead, ruby pearl bead, powder blue bugle beads, small ruby pearl beads, silver seed beads, silver wire, wicker fabric-covered Ethernet port, mustard yellow seed beads, black pipe cleaner

#237: Venus Fly Trap Spider

2011-09-19T20:28:00.000-04:00

One thing that I have realized about my own creativity is that I can see anything in any given day and think of some way of turning it into something. So, when I saw a squished bottle cap in a parking lot, I thought of a venus fly trap, and it was only a matter of time before I thought up how exactly I would turn it into a spider. The bottle cap I used was already green, so I just touched up the edges with a lighter shade of green and painted the inside with a melon hue. I used tines from a hair comb for the cilia on the plant. And I had a small plastic fly to fit into the inside of the bottle cap. It's not visible in the picture and not that recognizable in person because of the tines. The finished spider turned out better than I thought it would, so that should motivate me to finish several other spider ideas for which I have scattered pieces.

Materials: Woody's bottle cap, plastic fly, hair comb tines, green plastic bead, dark and light green bugle beads, melon bugle bead shards, black seed beads, and silver wire

#235 and #236: R2D2 and C3PO spiders

2011-09-17T11:33:00.000-04:00

In no time at all, in a craft lair far, far below the earth's surface, a disturbed artist is disassembling action figures for a sick menagerie of robot arachnids. Beckoned by the Force to make a spider each day for a year, she considers the unthinkable for the sake of her twisted creations--destroying vintage toys to satiate the monster inside her. Known only as Spider Lady, she is feverishly creating a formidable army of 8-legged abominations, and she won't stop with just R2D2 and C3PO. She cannot stop. Indeed, only one can stop her.

Materials: R2D2 toy; white baking clay; blue baking clay; ivory, royal blue, and turquoise blue bugle beads; royal blue and silver seed beads, silver wire

C3PO toy, computer wire, gold bugle beads, gold and gunmetal seed beads, gold wire

#234: White in the Kitchen Spider (#6 in the Clue series)

2011-09-16T00:18:00.000-04:00

Mrs. White is no dummy. A rolling pin would do the trick, but if she were going to dispose of someone, she admits she'd probably go for a dusty candlestick or some other heavy household item within arm's reach, nothing that would actually give her away. Oh, but she's not saying she would actually do such a thing...just that anyone with brains would be very careful. Being that she spends most of her time in the kitchen, she is often forgotten and overlooked until guests are waiting for food to be put on the table. Who is Mrs. White? It's hard to say. Throughout the course of her many years under the employment of Mr. X, she has learned that remaining silent and appearing ordinary are the keys to keeping her job and staying unnoticed. She has a strong work ethic and no time for nonsense, so the question is--what sort of flim-flam would put Mrs. White over the edge, light a match under her burner so to speak? To whom is she really loyal? Play the game to find out.

Materials: faux pearl bead, gold bead cap, decorative gold head pin, brass spacer bead, small faux pearl bead, white crackle bead, white and gold bugle beads, gold seed beads, clear faceted spacer beads, gold wire

#233: Green in the Billiard Room Spider (#5 in the Clue series)

2011-09-15T23:57:00.001-04:00

Gotta love a man who wears a smoking jacket in someone else's house, but then again, Mr. Green is known for being presumptuous and conceited, as well as overly flamboyant. He does nothing for the ladies, and his toupée is not easy on the eyes. Green's emotional detachment from everyone around him (note that I didn't say everything) makes others suspicious, as well they should be. Whodunnit? Probably Mr. Green.

Materials: round green glass bead, gold bead cap, decorative gold head pin, brass spacer bead, clear and green glass bead, ivory and green bugle beads, gold and green seed beads, gold wire

#232: Scarlet in the Lounge Spider (#4 in the Clue series)

2011-09-15T23:49:00.001-04:00

Miss Scarlet is a hussy and a flirt. She has every reason to take someone out--an insatiable desire to have it all: money, men, fame. But do Plum, Green, or Mustard have anything she wants? Probably not. So it's anyone's guess what she's really doing skulking around in the lounge and letting the men drink her with their eyes. Watch out for that one.

Materials: round red glass bead, copper bead cap, painted brass spacer, red glass bead, decorative copper head pin, copper spacer bead, red and copper glass bugle beads, clear and iridescent brown seed beads, gold wire

#231: Peacock in the Conservatory Spider (#3 in the Clue series)

2011-09-15T23:42:00.000-04:00

Mrs. Peacock is my favorite female Clue character. She tries so hard to have the fashion sense of Miss Scarlett but comes across as frumpy and probably smells like cheap perfume. She also probably slips under everyone's mur-dar! But I love the feathers and ridiculous hat and bad eye shadow. She's a keeper.

Materials: blue clay marble, nickel bead cap, painted brass spacer, blue glass bead, blue pearl bead, silver head pin, violet blue and royal blue bugle beads, light blue and pewter seed beads, silver wire

#230: Riverbed Spider

2011-09-15T23:33:00.004-04:00

I love these glass (focal) beads when I find them. Sometimes they're too much money. I've been coveting a universe bead for some time now. Bead makers who have the finesse to capture (what appears to be) a universe in a small pendant probably deserve the $50 to $90 price tag on these gems. But this "gem" cost me very little, and I just really loved the brown and blue together, which made me think of a clear shallow creek bed. From there, like always, I just matched colors.

Materials: glass pendant, brown glass bead, blue/brown glass bead, blue and iridescent brown bugle beads, blue and iridescent brown seed beads, gold wire

#229: Mustard in the Study Spider (#2 in the Clue series)

2011-09-13T23:24:00.001-04:00

Day 196 was the first of my Clue spiders: Professor Plum in the Library. This week I plan to move through a lot of the Clue characters now that I've established a consistent design for the spiders. And I'd like to get my hand on some vintage packaging so I can create a display for the eventual sale of the entire collection of Clue spiders.

I always rather liked Colonel Mustard but could never picture him knocking off anyone. A man with so many neat and tidy features just doesn't go around whacking people on the head with household tools, does he? And he never struck me as a greedy sociopath. But I suppose anything is possible in the game of Clue...even a uniform that's practically chartreuse!

Materials: green-gold wooden bead, gold bead cap, gold head pin, gold spacer bead, amber-yellow glass bead, yellow-gold and iridescent brown bugle beads, mustard seed beads, chartreuse spacer beads, gold wire

#228: Koi Spider

2011-09-13T23:12:00.000-04:00

Similar to goldfish but with more an array of colors, koi fish have a spectacular uniqueness that changes by the fish. They're a horse of a different color or like the saying that no two snowflakes are alike, and with a combination of translucent white, black, and orange, all they would need is stripes to bring on some Tim Burton lovin'. I found the tiny orange spacer beads that were blends of translucent white and orange that immediately made me think of the fish, so then I just went about looking for beads that fit the koi fish profile. Waist deep in a project that's becoming more and more challenging in terms of coming up with ideas and obtaining supplies, I am happy when something clicks in my head and I find what I need to complete another spider.

Materials: painted wooden bead, white-orange glass bead, red coral disk bead, translucent white bugle beads, black seed beads, orange-white glass spacer beads, silver wire

#227: Haunted Mansion Spider

2011-09-13T23:03:00.003-04:00

Nothing says "haunted mansion" quite like a scary portrait of a lady...or in this case an antiqued (green patina) metal cameo of one complemented by blue-black and gunmetal beads.

Materials: metal cameo pendant, gunmetal flower spacer, blue faceted cabochon, gunmetal pearl bead, blue-black bugle beads, peacock blue and gunmetal seed beads, dark blue wire

#226: Skeletal Spider

2011-09-11T21:48:00.001-04:00

My favorite beads to work with are my silver beads, and I used the last of what I have (for now) to make this spider. I had to be creative with the legs to evenly use what I had left, and I'd been wanting to experiment with different lengths anyhow, which gives this spider a higher rating on the creepy scale. The rib cage pendant was a lucky score at Target...but I still had to pay regular price for it. I don't take for granted the times that I come upon cheap or free finds for my spiders, so I figure that some of them should require an investment.

Materials: rib cage pendant, silver bugle and tube beads, silver spacer beads, black seed beads, silver wire

#225: Fiber Spider

2011-09-11T21:42:00.001-04:00

I've been planning this spider for a long time but just had to sit down to make the pom-poms. I bought a pom-pom maker years ago, and this was the first time I used it! I didn't want to use beads for the legs because I felt that this spider needed to be made using fibers, but I did use wire for the legs so that I had something around which to wrap the embroidery floss. When I was in high school, I learned to use this wrapped-string method for my hair after a summer fad for a type of hair "braid." Does anyone else remember doing this?

This is probably the largest spider I've made with the fewest materials.

Materials: pom-poms, wire, embroidery floss

#224: Nesting Spider

2011-09-11T21:32:00.002-04:00

I started out with a shiny silver metal finish on this swallow nest pendant but then chose a dark (antique bronze finish) and things went in a direction I wasn't crazy about. The spider was too dark. The beads I chose for the legs were too dark. And the spider, thus, wasn't saying anything to me. I started to think of the legs as branches--golden boughs--with leaves and a bird. So I repainted and added a patina finish to the swallow nest and rebeaded the legs for a much better outcome.

Materials: swallow nest pendant, glass butterscotch bead, gold glitter bead, green glass faceted beads, gold bugle beads, green leaf beads, brass bird bead, sea green seed beads, gold wire

#223: Spark Plug Spider

2011-09-09T00:27:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, I attempted to make a spark plug spider by asking a friend if he could show me how to weld. Welding, which is nothing like soldering (but I didn't know that), isn't something you can learn in an afternoon, and after watching my friend try his hand at welding coat hanger pieces to a small spark plug, I knew it wasn't meant to be. I left his house with a blackened spark plug, two pieces of metal hanger barely attached, and a shattered dream. (Just kidding...I don't break that easily.) But seriously, I was reminded of two things while Carl attempted to assemble my spider: 1) my grandpa used to tell me I'd go blind if I stared at the sparks, and 2) my step dad had holes in all of his shirts when he was a welder. These are not encouraging memories.

This spider project is about trying and learning new things, so at least I can say that I learned something about welding. I will stick to less dangerous spider making for the rest of this project, which is not to say I won't attempt time-consuming or intricate work. How could I not? I just need to make sure I keep all of my fingers. They are a very important part of my work.

Materials: Champion spark plug, metal and black glass bugle beads, silver spacer beads, metal nuts, silver wire

#222: Spoon Bridge Spider

2011-09-07T23:52:00.000-04:00

This spider brings either instant recognition or utter confusion. PLEASE tell me you've seen or know of the spoon bridge sculpture outside of the Walker Art Museum in Minneapolis, MN. It's really cool and really big. It's not the coolest thing at the Walker Art Museum--which, in my opinion, is a huge, huge painting of a man blowing smoke--but it's the easiest for making a memorable spider.

Materials: metal spoon costume piece, red clay bead, wood stem, blue opaque and blue crystal glass bugle beads, gray and silver bugle beads, silver wire

(To answer yesterday's posed question, at least three materials that I've used for spider legs that are NOT beads, besides straws for yesterday's lipstick spider, are porcupine quills, twigs, and macaroni.)

#221: Lipstick Spider

2011-09-06T22:53:00.002-04:00

There is only one thing that this color of glam red makes me think of, and that's red lip stick from the '80s. Working Girl. Madonna. If you were female, you had red lip stick (or wanted it really bad but were too young to wear it), and it was probably glossy. I tossed around the idea of this being a licorice spider because I cut up coffee straws to use for the legs, and the coffee straws made me think of licorice rope, but a licorice spider is for another time (and anyway, black licorice is my fave).

So, if you've been paying attention this whole time--can you name three other non-bead materials I have used for legs on past spiders? The answer will appear in tomorrow's blog.

Materials: red glass beads (2 sizes), red plastic coffee straw segments, red seed beads, red E beads, silver wire

#220: Marrakech Spider

2011-09-01T09:19:00.002-04:00

The vibrant colors and woven texture of this spider made me think of markets in Marrakech. I've never been to Marrakech or any such market, but the colors came together in such a way that my brain announced "Marrakech"--thus the name of this spider. And as always, I have a lot of fun playing with photography apps on my phone. I've been obsessed with the Be Funky app, which has 55 different filters and about 40 different frames. I used the "Tiltshift" filter and "Grunge 5" frame for this picture.

Materials: pink woven bead; orange glass bead; silver bead cap; blue plastic bead; blue plastic flower bead; pink, gold, and purple bugle beads; orange, blue, and purple seed beads; silver wire

#219: Sunken Treasure Spider

2011-08-31T22:24:00.000-04:00

Working on this spider reminded me of the excitement I felt early in my project when I created the Message in a Bottle spider and even found an appropriate poem that I scripted and rolled up to place in the bottle. My sunken treasure spider is a small "treasure chest" filled with rhinestones/gems, a conch shell, and a mermaid. I included a real shell from a broke necklace and a padlock from a toggle clasp. Altogether, this piece blends the dingy tarnish of things long lost to the sea and the rich splendor of extravagant travel by ocean liner. I couldn't help but think of the Titanic or even the iron-ore ship, The Edmund Fitzgerald (my absolute favorite sunken ship story), while I was making this spider. Being a person who is absolutely mesmerized by the history of an object, how it goes from something brand new to something unrecognizable, I couldn't have picked a better spider to represent that wonder.

Materials: metal chest pendant, rhinestones on netting, large rhinestone, large topaz rhinestone, metal mermaid finding with orange stone, conch shell charm, padlock charm, iridescent shell, rhinestone encrusted spacer, faux tan pearl, gray and iridescent brown bugle beads, sage green seed beads, blue glass pearl beads, silver wire

#218: Limeade Spider

2011-08-30T16:10:00.000-04:00

Today's spider is sort of an intermission to some truly great spiders. I occasionally have NO good ideas or not enough time for a really great one, so I fill in my project with something colorful but less meaningful. My neighbor came over this morning and asked to see my spider project so far. She last saw my project about 50 spiders ago and said that the most recent box of spiders (I store my spiders in pizza boxes and can fit about 30-40 per box) was filled with my best ideas so far. I was actually a little surprised to hear someone say that. By the time I reached 200, I was feeling pretty dried up. Maybe in knowing that, I was actually kicking things up a notch, attempting to outdo myself and to keep my creativity from sliding down into an abyss.

I am still going strong at 218 and am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't mean that to sound negative...like I'm trying to escape something dark. But the truth is, this project is sometimes draining. It keeps me from other projects and activities. It forces me to constantly think about how to turn something into something it isn't. I'm always scratching around for objects that resemble spiders, which is how macaroni caught my attention. Everything is a spider. Even macaroni and cheese. I eat, sleep, and breathe spiders and quite possibly won't know how to live without them in January, when I finish my project.

So enjoy this intermission.

Materials: green plastic beads, green seed beads, lime green and cream seed beads, green wire

#217: White Oak Spider

2011-08-30T15:51:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, your brain will wrap around an idea as if it were your own when actually you saw the idea recently and subconsciously remember it, which is sort of how I came to realize that I was making this spider to resemble a spider that I made last week (the fairy frost spider). Using a segment from a vintage bracelet and coordinating cream and silver, I basically made the same spider but got a different vibe from it. After Hurricane Irene moved north and out to sea, a cool breeze replaced our summer winds. I heard geese outside this morning, and the air was crisp. Fall is on the way. Fall reminds me of oak trees and acorns (and a really wonderful apples and oak candle that I used to have).

Materials: plastic/metal bracelet segment, white crackle bead, silver spacer bead, ivory bugle beads, silver and sage green seed beads, silver wire

#216: Débutante Spider

2011-08-28T10:35:00.000-04:00

Débutante is French for "female beginner." This aristocratic young lady is "debuted" as a mature adult, and if she is from the Southern U.S. is considered a "Southern Belle." Photographs of débutantes depict elaborate full white gowns, which is what I thought of when I decided to use the focal piece for this spider (which, like many of my pieces, was once an earring). With almost a Ferris Wheel design, the faceted bezels, filigree, and rhinestones give this spider much ado. I should have just called it a filigree spider, but how is that fun?

Materials: silver/rhinestone earring piece, silver spacer bead, silver filigree button, silver filigree tube beads, silver seed beads, iridescent round beads, silver wire

#215: Fiesta Spider

2011-08-27T18:21:00.000-04:00

Fiesta! We're stuck inside with Hurricane Irene bellowing outside, so we're basically eating everything in the house. That's what partying is all about. So far we've cleaned out an entire can of Omega-3 Planter's trail mix that I bought this morning, and we're working on some baked goods with chocolate chips. We'll probably eat popcorn and watch a movie if the power stays on. Tomorrow I plan to make some soup while the weather is still soggy. The warm, vibrant colors that I used for this spider are a welcome sign on this gray, wet, rainy day. Here's hoping everyone--our friends and loved ones from North Carolina to Baltimore to New Jersey to New York--stay warm and safe over the next couple of days.

Materials: blue plastic disc bead, brass bead caps, wooden bead, floral clay bead, yellow bugle beads, peacock blue seed beads, coral E beads, lime green floral wire

#214: Jade Elephant Spider

2011-08-26T09:44:00.001-04:00

This particular jade elephant is from a charm bracelet, but I can remember my dad having a series of stone elephants in his house from small to large. Elephant figurines are evidently lucky, especially if their trunks are up and number 8 or more. They're supposed to be placed in the "wealth" area of your home. The elephant has long been known as a symbol of strength (the animal is huge), power (see previous comment), and wisdom ("an elephant never forgets"). According to Animal Planet's Top Ten Animal Myths: An Elephant Never Forgets, "Elephants are able to retain a mental map of their entire home range—we're talking an area the size of Rhode Island! Elephants also travel in packs and when the group gets too big, the eldest daughter breaks off to start her own contingent, yet she never forgets her roots. One researcher witnessed a mother and daughter elephant recognizing each other after 23 years of separation." That's pretty amazing.

Materials: jade elephant, green glass bead, pewter bead cap, gray bugle beads, seafoam green seed beads, grooved metal spacer beads, silver wire

#213: Copper Flame Spider

2011-08-25T13:58:00.000-04:00

I flame colored copper mesh for a flame-like cap over a copper-colored bead on which I painted a green patina. The rectangular beads used for the leg joints already have a flame-colored effect, so the idea was to give the spider a lot of dimension with color and age. I made another copper spider for my 365 Spiders project but used different beads (glass rather than metal for the legs) and a more simple concept.

Materials: textured copper focal bead, copper mesh, copper coil bead, flame-colored rectangular copper beads, copper seed beads, copper tube beads, rusted wire

#212: Fairy Frost Spider

2011-08-25T10:02:00.000-04:00

You were perhaps expecting glitter and wings? Haven't you heard that glitter is the herpes of the craft world. I can't believe that someone had the idea of putting it on clothing!

I had a lone clip-on earring that I've looked at on and off for a spider idea, but sometimes I get my idea once I put the right colors together. It's difficult to match this color of blue-green, and I didn't have bugle beads that came close. I didn't want to use a lot of gold, and nothing else really seemed to go with the costume jewelry piece except a non-color. So when I decided on ivory, that's when the idea of frost came to me. And who else puts frost on leaves and spiders but...oh, well, yes--Jack Frost. But don't you think Jack Frost is a bit fairyish?

Materials: leaf clip-on earring, blue glass drop bead, gold bead cap, tan pearls, ivory bugle beads, blue-green E beads, gold seed beads, gold wire

#211: Macaroni Spider

2011-08-24T08:34:00.000-04:00

I Spy bottle filled with small charms and pasta/rice

It's more fun to call this a macaroni spider than just plain ol' pasta spider. Besides, I got my inspiration from a box of Kraft macaroni and cheese. Maybe you've realized that KM&C is even yummier when you cut back on the macaroni and mix in all of the cheese. That's how I ended up with extra noodles, which I realized were a lot like over-sized bugle beads. And the idea was probably planted in my head after I spent an evening dying alphabet pasta red and blue to put in I Spy bottles for birthday party favors (the likes of which would have been great for the 365 day project if I were following Noah Scalin's book).

Materials: bowtie pasta, rotini pasta, macaroni pasta, star pasta, gold wire

#210: Drag Racing Spider

2011-08-23T08:30:00.000-04:00

I was at Michaels in their kids' summer craft section and spotted pine wood pull-back car kits for $1--el cheapo! How cool to make a spider that MOVES! Yeah, guess what you get for a dollar? Exactly what you paid for, that's what. I used just the device with the pull-back gears for my spider (plus the rods and tires). I started off by making an actual pine wood body; I just adapted the car to make it smaller, but it was still too big for a spider (see photo), so I adapted the model once again, taking it down to just the bare bones (and adding some cool checkered-flag paper to the body). Although the spider looks very cool (IMO), it lacks mobility. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But the spider gets 5 stars for ingenuity.

Remember the movie Animal House? At the very end, the frat boys convert Fred's Lincoln Continental into a deathmobile to crash the homecoming parade. This was what I had in mind when I was creating my spider, although mine looks nothing like the deathmobile in the movie.

Materials: pull-back car mechanism with tire rods and tires, hounds tooth glitter card stock, painted wooden bead, black and teal bugle beads, black and teal seed beads, silver wire

#209: Summer Pond Spider

2011-08-22T18:45:00.000-04:00

I bought what I thought was a copper leaf finding at a bead shop and took it home to torch it and watch the colors change (and use it for a copper spider), but when I discovered it wasn't copper, I decided to take a different approach. The green/orange/gold color scheme was very vivid in my mind's eye, and it even turned out the way I envisioned it, with small brass dragonflies glued all over. I kept thinking of the way dragonflies skim across ponds in the summer light, and I wanted a spider that would reflect the light and shadow of these colors on a pond.

Materials: painted metal leaf finding, tan pearl bead, green marbled glass bead, green and orange bugle beads, green and orange seed beads, silver wire

#208: Observatory Spider

2011-08-22T18:34:00.000-04:00

The focal bead for this spider is sort of a peacock blue pearl with a silver rim around it, which made me think of Saturn and then the overall shape of an observatory. Plus, the peacock blue and matching faceted joint beads are very night-sky-like.

Materials: metal pearl bead, hematite star bead, peacock blue pearl bead, silver bugle beads, peacock blue and silver seed beads, peacock blue faceted beads, silver wire

#207: Equestrian Spider

2011-08-22T18:26:00.000-04:00

I had a small brass horse head and a small silver horseshoe charm, so I glued them together and painted them with a pewter finish. I love the lucky horseshoe/horse look and even went through a phase of looking for horse designs on fabric and jewelry pieces. I chose the darker leg colors to match the dark reds, greens, and browns of horse and hound paintings (which I have also seen on some very marvelous toile fabric). I think it would be neat to have a sun room or mud room done up with an equestrian theme.

Materials: metal horse and horseshoe charms; green glass bead; brown plastic bead; red wooden spacer; gray and green bugle beads; coral, green, and topaz seed beads, silver wire

#206: MerSpider

2011-08-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

Because MerSpider could potentially be a man or a maid (I'm not good at determining the sex of a spider, especially these), I'm afraid you'll have to use your imagination for the torso. No, really, use your imagination, because I chose the ivory/gold bead intentionally. Do you see why? I didn't want anything human (as far as a head/torso) for this spider, and it was a challenge to find beads that I liked to go with this sort of slapped together fish tail pendant. I severed a metal mermaid pendant at the waist so that I could attach the body/fin to a teardrop pendant that had a scale-like pattern. I had to bend and glue the pieces together, then wrap them in aluminum foil so they would look seamless, then paint the bejeezus out of the pendant to ensure that the aluminum and the paint wouldn't chip away. I wanted to use shiny greens and blues for the spider, so I surprised myself by falling for ivories and golds, too. Even an ivory and gold-painted clam shell is helpful in accessorizing this spider (and hiding a lot of rather ugly wire bits in the center).

Materials: metal pendants, aluminum foil, paint, clear seal, metal clam shell charm, vintage plastic floral-etched bead, blue flower bead, blue and ivory bugle beads, sea foam green and gold seed beads, lime green floral wire

#205: Cave Painting Spider

2011-08-18T23:40:00.000-04:00


Handmade pendants from the Taylors Falls Bead Store, MN

Ideas are everywhere, especially in bead shops. I love coming across handmade pendants and beads because they're so unique and original, and when I stumbled on these cave painting pendants, I knew I had to attempt one for a spider. I painted a polished black stone with browns, coppers, and golds until I came up with the right backdrop for my design. Then I painted cave designs with black, copper, and dark bronze to celebrate a few other 365 Days of Creativity projects.

Three other blogs that I follow share something in common with my spider project: roundness. Tara of Sun A Day, Ange of The Daily Turtle, and Heidi of A Snail A Day! are making something every day for a year, too. I often see Tara's suns and think of my spiders, and Ange's turtles are round leggy critters just like my spiders. How Heidi goes about her daily brainstorming for her snails is something I can identify with, and I think it's true that we all help each other brainstorm for our projects. So the cave painting on my spider is a snail swirl within a sun within a turtle.

Materials: polished stone, paint, brown plastic leaf bead, black and iridescent brown bugle beads, multi-tone brushed metallic and iridescent brown seed beads, silver wire

#204: Gladiator Spider

2011-08-17T22:01:00.000-04:00

The piece that I used for this spider was probably from an old earring or pin. I'm not sure. But it has the look of a shield to it, so I wanted to make some kind of Renaissance warrior spider or some-such. I thought this would be a cool Ren Fest spider. It's huge, too. It spans about 4 inches.

Materials: silver/red rhinestone medallion, round pewter bead, metal floral spacer bead, metal bugle beads, gray glass faceted beads, black seed beads, red rondelle beads, silver wire

#203: Scorpider (Scorpion Spider)

2011-08-17T21:52:00.000-04:00

I guess I'm just sick of looking at and making spiders that look like spiders. Now that I've come across countless plastic dollar store insects and have access to lots of metallic and antiquing paints (and clear seal), it's fun to make some spider hybrids. I've made a bat spider, a hermit crab spider, and some other interesting mutant spiders, so what's one more? This scorpion needed a little more umph in the way of metallic red and copper paints and having its tail suspended over its body rather than curled off to one side like some cheap plastic-molded bug. I removed 6 of the plastic legs in order to replace them with much cooler beaded legs, but the pincers had to stay.

Materials: plastic scorpion, head pin, red rondelle bead, red faceted teardrop bead, red/black and red coral bugle beads, red and black seed beads, gold wire

#202: Pushing Up Daisies Spider

2011-08-14T19:34:00.000-04:00

Typically when flowers are paired with black, the juxtaposition has a funereal feel.

Materials: black daisy lampwork bead, black glass bead, charteuse glass bead, black bugle beads, lime green seed beads, white E beads, lime green floral wire

#201: Josephine Spider

2011-08-14T19:27:00.000-04:00

I told my daughters that they would each get a spider especially made for them on their birthday, so this is Josephine's spider with her initial and favorite colors.

Materials: Journey token; J typewriter key; purple/pink plastic bead; faceted magenta beads; dusty purple flower beads; pink, purple, and dusty purple bugle beads; magenta and purple seed beads; purple wire

#200: Moon Landing Spider

2011-08-12T13:46:00.000-04:00

I spent hours yesterday--hours that, trust me, I should have been spending on more important things--working on a great Day 200 video for today's spider. The content of my video relied on the arrangement "Also sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss. This piece is the title music for 2001: A Space Odyssey, but even though Mr. Strauss has been dead for eons and the piece should be considered fair use like most other classical music (in my opinion), someone out there obviously owns the rights and thwarted my attempts to use the music in my video no matter how hard I tried to find a fair use file. Also, there are already loads of YouTube videos using the piece, so copyright be damned!

Instead, you'll have to settle for this slightly less amazing video, but monumental in its own way, to celebrate my 200th day of making spiders. Neil Armstrong made history with his words when he set foot on our moon for the first time on July 20, 1969--42 years ago. I even used the Apollo filter on my Instagram camera app to take the picture and the 70s timeline feature on my SilentFilm Director app to take the video. I try so hard.

Materials: blue moon bead, metal astronaut finding, pewter bead, silver glitter bead, gray and blue bugle beads, silver and blue seed beads, silver wire

#199: Carpenter Spider

2011-08-11T17:16:00.000-04:00

I spied an old folding ruler at a collectibles shop and saw its potential for being cut up in lots of little pieces and used for projects, starting with this spider.

Materials: wooden ruler segment, brass finding, dark red and gold bugle beads, topaz and dark red seed beads, burgundy wire

#198: Cameo Spider

2011-08-10T22:47:00.000-04:00

You can imagine that cameos, way back before mass production, received much of their popularity due to being so small and yet so elaborately carved. Picture how amazed you were the first time you witnessed the goings-on at the Your Name On Rice kiosk at the mall. Except that cameos—the nice ones—are often carved from stone, coral, shell, or glass and not a piece of Minute Rice. The word "cameo" is Italian meaning "to engrave," and it's no wonder that people place a lot of value on the real deal. Look at all of the cheap plastic imitations out there in the world (including the one in this spider) making a mockery of a great art. Do you have a real cameo? Or know anyone else who has one? Wonders to behold.

Materials: brass cabochon base, plastic cameo, faceted ball chain, faux tan pearl, agate bead, marbled lavender bugle beads, peach seed beads, round tiger eye beads, copper wire

Day 197: View-Master Spider

2011-08-10T22:11:00.000-04:00

Before Ipods...wait, go back. Before DVDs...wait, even further. Before VHS...are you kidding me? Go way, WAY back. Back to when you listened to stories on a record player and probably read great adventures more than you watched them. Back to when Wizard of Oz was on TV once a year and it was a family event with buttered popcorn. Back when you had to get up off the couch to turn the channel. Yeah, right about there. That's when View-Master was in its prime. Let me give you a brief history (the good parts) of View-Master from our good friends at Wikipedia. The View-Master we know today--that is, the basic design we're used to--was introduced at the 1939 NY World Fair as an alternative to postcards. In the 1940s, the U.S. military saw its potential for personnel training and purchased 100,000 viewers and nearly 6 million disks from 1942 to the end of WWII in 1945. In 1951, the owner of View-Master bought out its competitor, Tru-Vue, and thus obtained licensing rights to Walt Disney Studios. Fifteen years later, View-Master began producing disks that featured child-friendly subjects, like popular TV shows of the time, and little else has changed since then other than companies merging, etc., etc.

When I was a kid, we had a View-Master projector that would get so hot you thought the whole contraption was going to melt and start the house on fire, and for a time, I think View-Master (or a competing company) came out with film cartridges that fit into a toy with a handle that you would turn to watch the movie (with no sound, of course). For kids during this era and during the advent of View-Master as a toy, this was as close as you came to seeing a movie without actually going to one. Pretty much. And even though it's more difficult to find good View-Master reels for the kiddies today (that's if they'd actually WANT to look at a View-Master), I'm still in awe when I put the View-Master up to my eyes and see such a teeny tiny picture in bigger-than-life quality. Fireworks, the Grand Canyon, even Bert and Mary on the rooftops of London--they all remind me of how we can be in awe of something so simple and technologically archaic. The View-Master reel I used for this spider is from Cinderella. Josie decided it would be fun to start cutting it up; it's okay, I did that with a few back in my day to see what they'd look like when taken apart. If you look at the picture closely, you can see the evil Lady Tremaine, in her non-3D glory.

Materials: View-Master reel section, foil tape, metal gear finding, black and silver bugle beads, silver and orange seed beads, silver wire

#196: Plum in the Library Spider (#1 in the Clue series)

2011-08-10T18:35:00.000-04:00

I was messing around with some plum-colored beads and trying to come up with a name when my thoughts naturally turned to dear Professor Plum of Clue game fame. This spider is perhaps slightly too effeminate to be considered male, but what kind of professor wears all purple?! And where would you find Professor Plum? In the study, of course. The real question is: Is it the candlestick, the dagger, the lead pipe, the revolver, the rope, or the wrench? I don't think the good professor's education would have allowed for any weapons training, so he might very well just go for the first thing he finds. The candlestick, don't you think?

My grandma had Clue in a closet in her family room. It was missing some pieces and the instructions, so my brother and I had to get creative about how to play the game. But I loved the little murder weapons and the game characters with their specific color preferences. My favorite was Mrs. Peacock. When the game was released in vintage (1970s) packaging a few years ago, with the same design as my grandmother's game, I had to have it.

I urge you to visit Wikipedia and read about the history of the Clue game. Some versions have additional characters, other murder weapons, and additional mansion rooms. Very interesting. This spider is more purple than the picture shows. Now I have to find just the right beads for the other characters.

Materials: light yellow glass bead, wrapped brass floral finding (with purple rhinestone), glass purple bead, brass head pin, iridescent lavender and ivory bugle beads, purple seed beads, brass disc beads, burgundy wire