DIY Halloween: PVC Lawn Spider

Just two days before Halloween, I decided that our front yeard was too sparse. I had some extra plumbing pipe leftover from another craft project, so I decided to create a huge-åss garden spider for the front lawn.

Photo © Richard D. LeCour

Just gather a little PVC pipe (well, OK, quite of lot of PVC pipe actually!) and you, too, can piece together a fun decoration that costs only about $50 in parts. Assembly takes about half an hour.

Each of the legs is made up of two two-foot sections of black 1.5-inch PVC pipe, a 90-degree bend, a 45-degree bend, and an end-cap (to prevent one of its live brethren from making its home inside). Invest in a small can of black Krylon spray paint to cover over stray labels and markings on the pipes (not yet done in the photos).

The best part about this is that it’s a very reusable decoration, with nothing to rust, break, or decay. I chose not to cement the pipe pieces together in order to reduce the storage size. That gave me a bit of a problem early on with pieces coming apart, but applying small strips of Scotch tape around the last half-inch of the male parts and the pipes easily solved that. An unplanned-for benefit of not cementing pieces together allowed for easy adjustment needed due to variations in the level of the lawn.

And, hey, if any plumbing emergencies arise, I’ve now got plenty of spare parts!

Update

We have reused this spider with the same parts each year for the past six years, sometimes with minor variations:

• Instead of expensive pumpkins for the body, use two black Hefty bags stuffed with recycled materials. Make one large (body) and another one small (head). Then, for easy clean-up, just toss the garbage bags into your receycle bin for the next garbage pick-up day. You will need to stake or tape the bags down if the weather is stormy or windy.
• To decorate the face, draw on the pumpkin with a black Sharpie marker. Or, if you use the Hefty bag variation, cut out eyes, mouth, and fangs from construction paper and tape it to the garbage bag head. Wet weather or morning frost/dew may cause your face to fall off — well, not your face, but the spider’s.