DIY Paper Mache Bee or Paper Mache Spider

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Have you ever made a paper mache bee? What about a paper mache spider? Well, stick around, and we will teach you how.

Bugs, yuck! Honestly, I am not a fan. Well, except for bees they are awesome.  My oldest daughter, Catie, loves bugs; she thinks they are cute and cuddly.  Okay, maybe not that far, but she does understand that all bugs have a purpose.  Rather than letting mom smash that spider, she will kindly take it outside and tell me the reason for its existence.  I honestly thought she would grow out of it.  I was wrong; she is 15 years old and still feels the same way about bugs.

Halloween EKK-Ology: Paper Mache Bee or Paper Mache Spider

Vayda and Mattie were super excited to have some fun, as long as there were no real bugs we would be playing with.  They each picked a bug that they wanted to learn about..  Mattie is deathly afraid of bees of any kind, so we decided on a honey bee. Because, let face it honey bees are awesome! Vayda decided on the creepy, crawly black widow since it’s almost Halloween and she loves those darn plastic spider rings.

Before we could get started on the paper mache bee and spider, we had to get everything ready.  Mattie grabbed the bowl, Vayda got everything set up nice and neat, and both the girls began tearing the newspaper.

Next, we dipped the torn newspaper into a glue and water mixture.  To do this, we mixed half water and half glue together, dipped each piece of newspaper into the mixture, and stuck them on the balloon piece by piece.  We completed about 4 layers.  The girls were super excited to start painting, and were pretty bummed when I told them we had to wait for the paper mache on our balloons to dry.  So Vayda offered to speed up the process and held both balloons in front of a fan.  Which worked wonderfully; rather than waiting for several hours, she only had to hold them for about an hour, lol.  She is such a trooper!

Let the fun begin!  Since mom totally forgot to purchase paint brushes, guess what?  The kids had to use their fingers.  I know they were really upset about it, lol.  They had a blast painting their bugs with paint.  I helped Mattie put the black strip on her paper mache honey bee, and she did most of the yellow.  I didn’t realize that we would need so much yellow.  Next time, I will know we need to double up on the yellow so we cannot see any of the newspaper.  Vayda covered hers in black, which was very nice, and then made the red hourglass figure on her paper mache black widow spider.

All three of us went to the Orkin Ecologist website to begin our research on the honey bee and black widow spider.  We also made little signs with what the girls learned about each of their bugs.  There is Vayda holding up a little sign she wanted me to make because she really enjoyed her visit at ecologist.com, and she wanted to share it with all of you.

For Vayda’s paper mache black widow spider, we added some fun eyes; notice how she did add more than one to make it spooky, She also added some Halloween legs because she wants to put it on the fence in the front yard for Halloween. We can tie the paper mache spider up easily with them, and it looks cute too.  She is also holding up her sign with things she learned about the black widow, such as that black widows have an hourglass shape on their belly, they can be found in many places in the world, if they bite, you should seek medical care ASAP, the bite of a black widow spider can be deadly, she will ONLY play with black widows that are plastic for Halloween, and she loves the colors red and black, but they are only cool on plastic spiders.  I love Vayda; she is too much!  Very smart, but always has to say something corky… I wonder where she gets that—it must be her father, lol.

Since Mattie couldn’t manage to keep her eyes open long enough to show her paper mache bee off, I asked Vayda to help.  I asked Mattie when she woke up if she wanted to, but she was just a little too cranky to do it—she gets that from her father, haha.

We also make the wings on the paper mache bee fun for Halloween and use the same fun eyes that we used on Vayda’s spider.  Vayda is holding up Mattie’s sign of what she learned about honey bees, which is that honey bees do matter; they are not just scary; they actually serve a purpose.  One out of every three bites of food comes from a pollinated plant; no bees means no pollination, which means no fruits or veggies for us to enjoy.  She also learned how we can help support the little bees we are often frightened of, but that does so much for us, which is: plant a garden, start a hive (only if you know what you are doing), or sponsor a hive, and yes, you can sponsor a hive.

We learned that from visiting the Orkin Ecologist.  She also likes that honey bees are black and yellow, because those are her favorite colors today, lol.  Yes, she changes favorite colors all the time and is actually still trying to learn all her colors, but after today she knows yellow and black, and I seriously doubt she will forget them.  Oh, and who can forget how much the whole family loves honey?  It’s something we always have in our home and use all the time for everything from honey and peanut butter sandwiches to dinner recipes.

This super fun sponsored post was sponsored by Orkin.