Autumn Crafts: Horse Chesnut Spiders (Kastanienspinne)

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We visited friends over the weekend and went to their local park: and found 100s of horse chesnuts or conkers as the Brits would call them. Where we live, we have found a good amount – say 5 or so at a time… but in our friends park: 100s! How could we resist. With bulging pockets full of conkers we returned home. Beautiful shiny, lovely conkers. First we did some preschooler maths for Pip Squeak: she got to sort them by size. And then we made some more lovely autumn crafts: conker spiders (or Kastanienspinne) (do check out our Conker Snake too – super tactile and lovely – and a great way to use up a number of conkers in one go!!).

Dies Bastel Idee fuer den Herbst gibt es auch auf Deutsch: Kastanienspinne

 Autumn Crafts with Nature

Materials: One large conker, 2 googly eyes, 2 pipecleaners, glue, skewer

You can of course make these spiders using sticks or tooth picks snapped in half to make the legs. But we have run out of tooth picks (can you believe it), so pipecleaners it is… which pleased us to no end, as the conker spiders looked adorable AND Red Ted then had an idea to make an ADORABLE horse (see below). The pipecleaners make the horse much easier to make and stand up. Lovely indeed!

 Autumn Crafts Spider

1) Cut your pipecleaners into 8 pieces. This is a great opportunity to ask Red Ted about “what would be the best way to get them all the same length”? We discussed halving them and then halving them again.

2) Make 8 holes for your legs and glue them in. You CAN get away with NOT glueing them in. But my kids like to play with the spiders, so a little glue is advisable. Make sure you make the hole deep enough for them to have something to “grip”. Ben the bottom of the legs to make little feet (see orange Spider).

Kastanien Spinne

3) We scratched the shiny surface of the conker so that the glue would “hold” better for the eyes and added the googly eyes.

Done.. and play.

And THIS little beauty was designed by Red Ted.. yes of course I helped him making the holes etc, but he decided “how” to make the horse and chose all the colours etc. To “top it off”, we glued on an acorn cap as a muzzle!

Kastanien BastelideenWe used a strip of brown pipecleaner as the main and little pieces as the ears. 3 bits as the tail. And a green pipe cleaner for the legs. We joined the head and body, by inserting a toothpick and glue.

See our full set of Chestnut DIYs here:

This is one of my most precious childhood memories - crafting with conkers (also known as horse chestnuts or buckeye crafts) - I love the smooth texture and the fun chestnut crafts you can make. Here re 15 lovely ideas for Fall

Looking for more Nature Crafts for Autumn? Take a peak at these!
Nature Crafts for Fall

Enjoy!