Spring Craft for Kids ~ Butterfly on a Stick

Temps are warming up and hopefully soon spring will engulf our back yard.  I can’t wait for all the trees to be in bloom and our back yard to come alive with color.  While we are waiting, we decided to create an adorable Tie Dye Butterfly on a Stick that we can fly around the house.  Butterflies crafts are adorable but when you add the element of flight they become magical.  This is a fun spring craft that will have your kids itching to catch a real butterfly.

To create your own flying butterfly you will need:

• Coffee filters and scrap paper
• Washable Markers
• Clothes pin
• Pipe cleaner
• Stick ~ we used a cake pop stick, but anything would work – even one from your back yard.
• Google Eyes
• Fishing line
• White Glue
• Spray bottle

The kiddos colored their entire coffee filter with washable markers just like when we made our Monster Marker Prints.  Any color combination works, however remember that the colors will be bleeding and blending together.  Brighter color combinations works best.

Lay the colored coffee filter on top of a white piece of paper and have your kids spray with water.  Once the coffee filter is completely wet, lay another white piece of paper on top.  Press the 3 layers together.

If you have patience, lay a heavy book on top and set aside to dry.  I never have time for that, so I use an iron for more instantaneous results.  You may need to sandwich the layers between more paper if you are using an iron, just depends on how wet the paper is. We have an iron that we only use for crafts, which we use more often that the one that is for laundry.  Wrinkly shirts or cute projects…I’ll vote crafts any day!

Once all 3 layers are dry, have your kids peel the layers to reveal what they created.  Don’t throw away the tie dyed top and bottom paper.  We will be using it in a future project that your kids will love.  I love the watercolor effect that this process creates.

We have also created adorable Monster Marker Prints with this same technique.

The kids added googly eyes and pipe cleaner antenna to their butterflies.
We attached our tie dyed butterfly wings to the clothes pin with white glue.  Then tied the fishing line around the tummy and secured with glue.  Make sure to test how your butterfly flies before gluing.  We had to adjust where to tied the fishing line to get the butterfly level.

Tie the other end of the fishing line and secure with glue.  We also wrapped a pipe cleaner around the stick just for looks.

Voila you now have a flying butterfly pet.

I had a hard time catching pictures of these little guys, they were zooming around the house so quickly.

I love when we can extend the life of a simple craft.  By creating a butterfly (that is one of those “right of passage” preschool crafts that have been around for years) and adding it to a stick we created a fun toy that they kids loved playing with.

The giggles and squeals that the kids made as they were flying their butterflies around the house was priceless.      

 What spring crafts are you creating?