The Very Busy Spider Craft

The Very Busy Spider Craft

3 spider crafts for kids inspired by The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Ask me to name my favourite Eric Carle book and I’ll umm and ahh indefinitely.
Kinda like asking me to name my favourite child. (Not that I have one.)
We are massive Eric Carle fans around here, and this The Very Busy Spider craft makes use of materials from a previous Carle-inspired project.

This post contains affiliate links.
Thanks for your support.

A kids craft project of a spider inspired by Eric Carle's Very Busy Spider

Eric Carle paints tissue paper that he then collages to create his iconic illustrations.

Check out this post where we imitate his technique and paint tissue paper.

We still have lots of this painted tissue paper leftover and we made use of it to create these spiders.
You could of course, collage these spiders with any paper.
But there’s something special about recreating the process of one of the world’s greatest picture book creators, no?

For this The Very Busy Spider craft, you will need:

Cardboard (we reused some packaging from a delivery)
Craft glue
Paper for collage
Googly eyes
Anything extra you’d like to use for embellishments. We used paint pens and chalk pastels.


2 cardboard templates of spiders for a project inspired by the Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle

Download and print your free spider template

Cut out the parts of the spider and trace these parts onto thick card.
My 2 children took different paths at this point.

Mr 3 insisted on gluing all the parts together before decorating.
Miss 5 decorated all the parts and then assembled the spider.
Whatever floats your boat!

Glue your paper to your cardboard. However tickles your fancy!

I then presented paint pens and chalk pastels and prompted my children to think about whether they could use these materials to decorate their spiders.

Glue on the googly eyes and you have a very busy spider ready to spin some webs!

After some more Eric Carle inspiration?

Check out our….

Project inspired by The Very Lonely Firefly

Paper plate butterflies perfect for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Tissue paper stars

Round up of Eric Carle Arts and Crafts

Pin for later:

We are massive Eric Carle fans around here, and this The Very Busy Spider craft makes use of painted tissue paper from a previous Carle-inspired project.Download your free spider template, grab some glue and you're ready to collage some spiders. #ericcarlecrafts #kidscrafts #kidsarts #spidercraft #theverybusyspider