How to Make DIY Craft Butterflies
By: Highlights Editorial
When children make little craft butterflies, their hands, fingers, and eyes synchronize. It’s a fine-motor-skills celebration, packaged as pretty play.
What You'll Need
What to Do
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From watercolor paper, cut out two oval shapes.
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Using watercolors or acrylic paints and water, decorate the ovals. Let them dry.
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Accordion fold the ovals. Pinch them together in the middle. Wrap a chenille stick around the center and twist to form antennae and a body.
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Add a ribbon hanger.
Extend the Fun
For younger kids: Tape several butterflies to a window sash, side by side, so they flutter in the breeze. They make beautiful butterfly decorations. Or make a mobile: Bind crisscrossed sticks with a figure eight of string, attach your butterflies to the four corners of the sticks and hang your mobile from a hook in the ceiling, or outdoors from a tree with outstretched branches.
For older kids: Study the colors of real butterflies, like the monarch, the Luna moth, and the painted lady (you’re a lepidopterist!) and paint your butterfly wings accordingly. When the weather warms up, plant flowers that attract these delicate creatures, and see who flutters by! Bonus project: Memorize the French word for butterfly—papillon—and look up the dog of the same name. You’ll see how he got his name. (Hint: Look at his ears.)
