Make a spiderweb inspired DIY vending machine as a fun way to give out prizes for your next Halloween game! We’ve written out step by step instructions for making the cardboard vending machine plus included a fun web of lies Halloween game you can use to play with it!

DIY vending machine decorated like a spiderweb

Halloween Vending Machine DIY

Over the past 10+ years as we’ve created party games for all seasons and occasions, one of the things that I’ve learned is that people love surprise prizes. One of our most popular games is this Halloween punch game where you have to punch out a prize.

I’ve seen a number of people share videos of DIY vending machines on social media, so I thought it’d be fun to make my own with a Halloween twist and turn it into a game of course.

This spiderweb vending machine DIY is super simple but people love it because it’s such a unique and fun way to get their prize, so much more fun than just picking it out of a prize bucket. We used it with our web of lies game with my family a few weeks ago, and it was probably everyone’s favorite of the Halloween party games we played!

Why This Game is So Fun

People love surprises and every web they cut comes with a surprise prize!
It’s fun for all ages. The game itself includes true or false questions so there’s a 50% chance they’ll get it right. You can always omit the actual game questions as well if you’d prefer!
It’s reusable. Make the box once and all you have to do is add more string and prizes every year.

Supplies

Supply notes

The only thing shown in the picture above is the cardboard box, which you’ll obviously need! Also, the decorations are totally optional. If you don’t want to paint or decorate, don’t do it.

Extra large cardboard box – I picked up a heavy duty box at Home Depot and have linked the same size on Amazon but really any large box should work.
White yarn – any brand will work, but avoid doing anything too thick; think spaghetti noodle size so it will easily slip through the holes.
Chopstick – or something similar in size, it’s not necessary but helpful when trying to push the thread through the box.
X-acto knife – or something similar that will allow you to cut a hole through the cardboard box.
Decorations – this can be whatever you want it to be; think plastic spiders, wrapping paper, spiderwebs, etc.
Tape – duct tape, or something strong like it is best; avoid using standard Scotch Tape or the prizes will likely fall off before they are cut, especially if you’re using heavier prizes.
Hot glue gun – best for attaching decor but you can use other glue or tape depending on what you use to decorate.
Prizes – I have a big list below of great prize suggestions with notes on choosing the best prizes!
Printable trivia questions – you can get our web of lies game questions at the bottom of this post! If you’re not playing the actual game, just skip the questions.

How To Make A Cardboard Vending Machine

Once you see how easy it is to make your own DIY vending machine, you may just end up making these for every single holiday! You could turn a Christmas one into a chimney, an Easter one into an Easter basket, and so on!

I’ve included an outline in the post but make sure to check out the full tutorial in the tutorial card at the bottom of this post.

1 – Prep the box

Using the X-Acto knife, cut off one of the inside folding flaps at the seam and set aside. Make sure you don’t cut one of the flaps that connect to close the box.
Trace out a large rectangle from the widest section of the box. This is where the web will go, so you want it to be roughly 2/3 of the box and towards the top half, while still leaving a full two inches from the top.
Use the X-acto knife to cut out three of the four sides of the drawn rectangle. Don’t cut the bottom line!
Gently fold the now-cut-out flap along the drawn line to create a crease.
Close and tape off the end with the missing flap. Make sure everything is taped tightly.
Fold the creased flap into the center of the box. Tape the flap to the back wall of the box. If your flap doesn’t reach the back, use the previously cut-out flap and attach it to the creased flap to create a shelf that reaches the back of the box.
Stand the box up on the untaped end.

2 – Add the Spiderweb to the box

Cut one string that is roughly eight inches longer than the length of your box from top to bottom.
Tape one end to the inside top of the box.
Use your X-acto Knife to cut an X on the middle shelf where you want your string to go. For the first few strings, make them go diagonally across to create good beams to cross other strings over later.
Gently push the string through the X with the chopstick. Pull the string until it is threaded all the way through and you can see it when you lift up the bottom flap.
Repeat this process with as many strings as you have prizes.

How to make it look like a spiderweb

The key to making the spider web shape is to place the holes randomly throughout the shelf so the strings are not simply hanging straight down. You also want to cross the strings randomly to make them change directions and create a more web-like look. The more cross sections the more web-like it will look.

3 – Decorate the spiderweb Vending Machine

Once all of your strings are in, it’s time to decorate. There is no wrong way to decorate this. You can do what you want. I painted the outside purple because I had purple paint and hot-glued webs and spiders all around to make it look more eerie.

Then I used black letter stickers and white paint pens to decorate the flap at the bottom.

4 – Add the Prizes

Lift the bottom flap choose one of the strings and one of your prizes. Tie the string tightly around the prize, making sure it doesn’t touch the ground. You can wrap it around multiple times if you need to.
Repeat with all of the other prizes and strings to fill your Halloween vending machine.

Tip for lightweight prizes

If you’re doing things that don’t weigh very much like cash, I highly recommend adding some sort of rock or coins or something to weigh it down. We did cash on its own and it didn’t fall as well as the other things because it was so light. People love cash, just add a little weight to it.

How to play Web of Lies

You can absolutely just let people take turns cutting a string and winning a prize. If you’re doing this with kids for say a classroom party, I may even recommend it. But if you want to turn this into an actual game, this is how we played Web of Lies.

Download the list of truth or lies questions at the bottom of this post. Or you can just make up your own. It’s just statements about Halloween things, each one is either a truth or a lie.
Have one person come to the front and tell them one of the statements.
They guess if it is a truth or a lie. If they get it correct, they get to cut a string from the spiderweb vending machine and win the prize that comes out. If they get it wrong, they go to the back of the line to try again when they’re turn comes back up.
Once someone wins a prize, they’re out of the game so the same person doesn’t win all the prizes.
Keep going until everyone has won a prize or use the alternate method below if you’d prefer to make it more of an “only the top people win prizes” kind of game.

Tip!

I recommend making a vending machine with enough prizes that everyone can win a prize of some sort rather than just having a few people win prizes. If someone gets the answer wrong, they just go to the back of the line and try again until they get one right and win their prize.

four images showing playing a game with a diy vending machine

Alternate Game Play

If you want to make the web of lies game one where only one or a few people win prizes, you can play it just like our Christmas higher or lower trivia game. Here’s how I’d do that:

Give everyone two pieces of paper, one that says truth and one that says lie.
Read a statement and on the count of three have everyone hold up their answer. Whoever gets it right wins a point (or in the higher or lower bookish game, people grabbed mini books from the center to keep track of their points).
Keep going and the first person to get to ten correct answers first gets to cut their prize down from the vending machine.

I would do this version if you want to use the DIY vending machine as your way to give out more substantial prizes for a bunch of Halloween games for teens and adults. You could just have the winner of each individual game (like for example if you did Halloween trivia and Halloween Jeopardy, each would have their own winner) get to cut down a prize.

Prizes Ideas

As promised here is a list of prizes that work for a range of ages and budgets. I recommend doing prizes that are all about the same value if you’re doing this with kids who might not think it’s fair. Teens and adults should be fine.

Candy – you can’t go wrong with a bag of candy. You could do movie theater size candy or just individual pieces if you’re doing this for a lot of people!
Gift cards and money – always a good choice, just make sure gift cards are universal!
Halloween stuffed animals – this spider Palm Pal is adorable! Or you could do these emotional support ghosts and just clip one in and give them the entire thing if they win this one!
Halloween bracelets – this pack could be split up for multiple people!
Halloween beauty items – things like this skeleton hair clip, this themed face mask, or this Halloween makeup bag would be great.
Fuzzy fall s ocks – there are a bunch of different designs in this pack!
Pumpkin pie chapstick
Halloween card game – my family loves that one but you could do anything.
Halloween LEGO set – the little ones are perfect for this!
Halloween favors – things like these squishy Halloween characters or these Halloween bracelets or Halloween sticky hands would be fun for kids.

Tips for choosing prizes

Choose your prizes based on who will be playing the game. If you’ll have a coed group, I recommend sticking with universal prizes like candy, gift cards, and even chapstick. Guessing most teenage boys in your life aren’t going to be excited about getting a makeup bag.

Same thing if you are playing with multi-generations – kids and teens/adults like different prizes. Or you could do different colors for different types of prizes if you want to do something specific – kids get white strings and teens/adults cut black strings for example.

asterisk

Download the Web of Lies Game

Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get the printable free download PDF. You will receive a link to download the PDF to your email within minutes. Print on card stock and you’re on your way.

If you’d prefer to not provide your email address, you can get a copy in my shop here.

If you do not see the form, click here to get to it.

If you do not see the email with the printable immediately after you fill out the form, make sure to check your promotions, spam, and junk folders!

The file will include:

50 truth or lie statements (all Halloween inspired)
Truth or lie cards
Use policy – all files are for personal use only!

printed out web of lies questions and truth or lie cards

More Halloween Games

If you like Halloween party games like this one, try out these ones next! They’re great to add to any of your other Halloween party ideas!

Halloween bingo – a Halloween inspired version of the classic game!
Halloween would you rather – all sorts of silly Halloween inspired this or that questions!
Halloween charades – the classic game with a couple of creepy twists!
Halloween bowling – a ghostly version of the bowling alley game!
Halloween treasure hunt – four different ways to do a Halloween scavenger hunt not just for kids!