Yard Spider

I made this creature three years ago for Halloween and had no intention of keeping it around for so long. I was simply going to toss it into a bonfire and drink some beer after the holiday. Then I realized just how much I liked the look of the thing and decided to make structurally more sound. Originally I made the abdomen more like a basket of woven twigs and the legs were just sort of stuck on good enough to keep it from sagging to the ground. When I redid the legs so they would be stronger I had to tear the basket off. Rather than build a new basket I decided on this design for the abdomen. It consists of a lot of short pieces of branches attached to three or four sections of wood with screws and nails and the whole assembly is then attached to the body of the spider. All in all I really like the way this turned out and get quite a few compliments from everyone who sees it (most pizza delivery folks).