This Halloween we decided to go big—two feet of paper mache big—and build a giant false widow spider inspired by Steatoda borealis. If you love spooky builds but still want something friendly enough to live indoors, this is that sweet spot: creepy enough to make your skin crawl, but not so gnarly you can’t display it in the house. We start with a beach ball armature for the abdomen, then layer on all the classic chaos: newspaper, paper bags, tape, expanding foam, and Celluclay until it finally stops looking like a trash pile and starts looking like an actual creature. From there, we get into the fun details—sculpting the head with foam and clay, then building legs that don’t flop around like sad noodles. We use wire for strength, EVA foam dowels for shape, and a lot of patience to get that bendy, spidery silhouette. After sanding, priming, and painting (burnt sienna, mars, and white), the whole thing ends up way more realistic than we expected. Quick note: we built ours for indoor display, so if you’re taking yours outside, you’ll definitely want to weatherproof it first.