Decorating the House for Halloween with GIANT Outdoor Spiders
Well, I told you a couple weeks ago when I was sharing some inspiration for a slow transition to fall decorating that I was thinking about going BIG this year for Halloween! While we got plenty of suggestions after I said that, did you ever think it'd be GIANT spiders on our house and porch? We've never been big on Halloween decorations - I really hate super scary and demonic things - there's no place for those in this house! We always do our fall mums and pumpkins on the porch of course - but as the kids are getting a little older, I find myself enjoying all the magic and memories that come with holidays and wanting to create unique ones for the kids. So, when I came across these giant spiders on a late-night Pinterest scroll, I was hooked. They're the perfect amount of spooky meets magical with their larger than life presence.
How to Hang the Giant Outdoor Spiders
I read a number of different blogs about how people secured them to their houses, and thought I found a magic new-to-me product that would work - brick wall hanger clips. I swear I measured as instructed, but when they arrived, the clips were too small and they wouldn't attach. I think I needed less grout and smaller bricks to make these clips work. They looked promising though!
I knew I needed some sort of hook to hang the body of the spider on, so I ended up finding outdoor command hooks and hoped they'd stick to windows, brick, gutters and shingles. I got two kinds - one with a small stainless steel hook for the body and then ones that are more designed to wrap around and hold rope lights to use here and there to hold legs down. I wanted them to wobble a little for realism, so I just planned to clip a few legs in place. They seemed to attach to everything well - the real test will be to see if they hold up in all the weather elements!
Spider Sizing and Placement
I ordered two sizes of spiders for six total: two large ones and four medium ones. The medium ones came in two-packs with some rope-like webs which was a bonus so I started by figuring out where to put those. I still had some command hooks up on my front door from my winter garland (and no I'm not ashamed to admit that) so using those and a couple new nails in the trim along the roof of the porch, I created places to hang the webs in both corners of the porch.
The webs created a great place to anchor two of the medium spiders, which I just pressed the Command hook to the wall behind the web and clipped the spider right over top of the web to hold it back away from the mums. Because these corners are really protected from the elements, I just bent and twisted the legs to hold onto different parts of the web and bricks and didn't hook any of them down.
Sidebar: As much as I think my "hope you brought wine" welcome mat works year-round that you got a glimpse of in my last blog post, I saw this one on my latest Target run and liked the heavier black design to go along with my transition to Halloween.
Coming out from the front door and webs, I wanted to then place the spiders in areas that made it seem like they were either coming to or crawling away from the front door. So immediately above the porch, I hooked one on the gutter sort of hanging straight off the house. This is another medium spider. For his legs, I just hooked them in and around the gutter and ceiling trim hoping that would be enough to keep it steady.
I put the last medium spider on the roof itself headed toward the big windows above the garage. Ok, actually Zach did. I'll climb a ladder but getting on the roof is not my favorite idea so he was "voluntold" to help. This is the one I'm most worried about coming off, but we'll see! Flying spider sure would be spooky! The spider on the roof is the hardest to see, but I like that he helps draw the eye up toward the big window where we put one of the large spiders.
The large spiders' legs were a little harder to work with being so lengthy, so we had to get creative in bending them to stay put without having to command hook the crap out of the window. But he got a few extra hooks to hold him down.
Same with the other large spider that I put on the lower level big window. Couple extra hooks to hold him down, but being attached to the window seems to work well.
The final result!? EEK!
Our Halloween Front Porch with Giant Spiders
With our pumpkins and mums, this is the most "Halloween" we've ever decorated for. But I'm really kind of loving it!
Our mums from Earl May are starting to bloom. When picking up pumpkins, I grabbed two tiny 4" potted mums too.
I love mixing and matching pumpkins - traditional orange for jack-o-lanterns and white pumpkins and gourds too. After Halloween, everything else gets to stay as long as it lasts leading up until Thanksgiving.
Pulling up to our driveway is quite the sight! Initial review from our three-year-old nephew was ... "ew." haha!
Even though Zach wasn't 100% on board at first - I even believe he said it was OVERKILL at one point - I've heard him more than once say "yeah, it looks pretty good out there." I call that a (spooky) win! Now to see how long they hold up... I'll keep you posted!
Need a (spooky) porch fix-up? Here's what you'll need:
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