Spiderwoman

First up - an admission. Halloween's never really been my thing. I'd like to think it's because my parents wouldn't let us get involved with trick or treating, but my sister loves Halloween and regularly holds/goes to Halloween parties, so I guess that's not it.

Me? It's the one night I can be assured of a trip to the cinema to avoid said trick or treaters. And eggs and flour on the door.

This year however, colleagues were holding a fundraising party on Friday as part of their mission to climb 24 peaks in 24 hours in aid of Homeless International. (This is partly a team building exercise - beats the usual, but I'm equally glad I'm not in their team!). Fancy dress was entirely optional, but I spotted this and couldn't resist making it.

Source: elhadadepapel.blogspot.co.uk via Helen on Pinterest

The instructions are quite sparce, but there's enough there to get you to a finished product. You could probably do this with just a white wire coat hanger and white yarn, if you have a strong enough pair of pliers or wire cutters. I got myself down to Hobbycraft and picked up a thin silver alice band and some 1mm and 0.6mm silver jewellery wire (had tried to get white 1mm wire to then use yarn, but couldn't find any so improvised - I think it worked out ok). And a hot glue gun which I borrowed from the boy.

But a spiderweb is nothing without a spider, so knowing that my crafting skills weren't up to making that too I found some in a pound store, and hot glued one to the web. I had a couple spare, so hot glued them to brooch backs to pin on my clothes.

I'm willing to admit that I put far more thought into the spiderweb than I did into my clothes. In the end I opted for all black, and it was only on the bus into work on Friday morning that it all fell into place - I wasn't going as a woman who'd made a spiderweb fascinator. Oh no. I was going as a black widow.

Spot the liberal application of hot glue!

(It also reminded me of this song from A Star is Born. I love so much of this soundtrack, but Queen Bee in particular is a standout track for me.)

I got loads of comments about how great it looked, and even had colleagues coveting it for their own costumes at other parties that weekend. Best of all? It meant I could go to a Halloween party in fancy dress and still not look like an idiot on the night bus home. That really is priceless.