Incy Wincy Spider DIY

Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the water spout, 

Down came the rain and washed poor Incy out, 

Out came the sunshine, 

and dried up all the rain... 

So Incy Wincy Spider climbed up the spout again!

Like any child, my daughter loves Nursery Rhymes, so I decided to make her, her own little Incy Wincy to sing along with, she loved him! (And I love making pompoms, so everyone is a winner!) 

This is a fairly easy DIY, even for little hands, but some of the stages will need carful adult supervision, and I will suggest some changes along the way if you want your little ones to do the crafting. 

So, heres what you'll need... 

I used the A Beautiful Mess App to add the writing

First up is the spider himself, for this I used a pom-pom maker bought from a now defunct online store, these are quite easy to get hold of now and most craft stores stock them in a variety of sizes. 

If you don't have or want to invest in a pom-pom maker, (perhaps you aren't as enthusiastic about pom-poms as me) you could always do it the old fashioned way using two cardboard circles, theres a great Instructables tutorial for this here. 

                               

Once you've tied your pom-pom off, give him a haircut, use the scissors to trim off any    

                long ends of yarn so he looks nice and smart for his performance! 

           Do make sure you leave a nice long length of yarn attached to it though. 

Then it's time to add the legs, push the 4 pipe cleaners through the pom-pom body to make your spider. (In hindsight I thought that it may be better to pop your legs through the pom-pom maker/carboard rings before you tie it, but it will work either way) 

Take care to travel through the loop of yarn holding the pom-pom together, and don't worry if                   some yarn gets pushed out, it wont matter too much.

Now bend your spiders legs into the desired shape. I put an extra bend in mine as I thought it was cute, but be warned, this can catch a little on the bottom of the spout preventing the overall effectiveness. 

Do remember though, pipe cleaners can be sharp!

All Incy needs now is a lovely pair of eyes, although my eyes already had sticky backs I felt it was better to glue them on, after all this is for use with a child and I didn't want a rogue eye floating around the house so I used my faithful glue gun to safely stick them into position. 

If a child is doing this though, I would recommend a PVA glue as hot glue guns can cause nasty burns.

And there you have it. 

Incy Wincy Spider... Pretty cute right? 

                     He's not complete yet though, he needs a spout to climb up!

For this stage you'll need straws, sellotape, scissors and an old cardboard box, or if you're feeling up to a trip to the shops a sheet of shiny silver card would be lovely! 

I however found a battered old cereal box for this post *blushes*... 

Start by sellotaping your straws together to create a 'U' shape

I used jumbo straws from JYSK

These will help you push Incy Wincy back down the spout when the rain comes along. 

Tidy up the edge of your cardboard if you need to using the scissors, this is definitely another adult assisted job. 

A great job for kids at this stage would be to add a little decoration to the spout, perhaps writing out the song or gluing down sequins, whatever they choose, its a great opportunity to get creative!

On the wrong side of the box (the side you don't want to see) sellotape one half of your straw 'U' down, making sure you leave enough room for Incy to be hidden beneath it. You can trim the top of this star to no sit flush with the top of the cardboard. 

The other half of there straw 'U' needs to be left free to move. 

Now curl your cardboard into a cylinder, I used my sellotape to 

help me get the correct shape

Once you're happy with the width of your cylinder and happy that Incy can sit 

comfortably within it, sellotape it into position. 

And, you're done! All thats left to do is feed the long length of yarn through the bottom of the 'spout' and get your singing voices ready! 

Hopefully you will get as many giggles from your little one as I did! 

When sing along, pull the yarn to guide inch up the spout, then push the straw down to 'wash' him back out. 

If you have a go at this, I'd love to see your attempts, if you're an instagram user, simply use the hashtag #windupincy 

You could also use Incy as a prop in other nursery rhymes, for instance...

Little Miss Muffet, sat on her tuffet, 

eating her curds and whey... 

Along came a spider, and sat down beside her, 

and frightened Miss Muffet away!

I'm pretty sure he'd be great fun at Halloween too.

Have fun! 

Thanks for stopping by, 

Charlotte

N.B. Please do not allow young children to play with this unsupervised as it will have not been made to CE standards and could cause injury to children under 3 years.