DIY 3D Butterfly Wall Art with FREE Templates

Hello! Are you all enjoying the early days of Spring? The early flowers are bright and lovely, veggie gardens are being cleaned up and planned, and the tree in our front yard is blooming its pretty white flowers this week. 

I am shaking the Winter chill from my bones and am loving this weather, both rain or sun!

I will be having a brunch on Easter Sunday and decided to make a pretty display for the wall in my dining room. It is a simple, beautiful way to decorate for Spring and the upcoming holidays!

The templates (found below) can be printed directly onto card stock or printed once, folded, and used as a template to trace onto card stock of your choice.  

I used card stock in pastel colors. Depending on how many you want to create, printing them directly onto card stock may be a quicker way to mass produce your butterflies.

Fold the printed butterflies in half. I hand drew the butterflies so the dotted line may not be exact but if you fold the page in half, the butterflies will still cut out perfectly. 

After cutting out as many as you wish, (we had 60 butterflies, big and small), put a bit of double-sided tape on the body part of the butterfly and attach it to the wall for display. 

Our girls helped me tape all the butterflies in a diagonal pattern flying upwards. 

Then, we folded each wing inward to make a crease along the body line of the butterfly. This creates the 3D effect! It is similar to the Bat Wall we created for Halloween!

Here are the templates for both the big and tiny butterflies. The downloaded templates will be plain to conserve on ink.  

Make sure your print settings are "scale to fit page" so that they print at the correct sizes.

DOWNLOAD HERE

DOWNLOAD HERE

  

Please let me know if you create a 3D butterfly wall of your own. I would love to see them all! 

Other ideas for these templates: 

• Decorate the classroom! Students can write their wishes for Spring on the wings and tape them to the walls to share. Younger students can decorate with their names or draw patterns on the wings.

• Print the templates to use as unique gift tags for Spring birthday parties and events! 

• Print and write names on your butterflies as place settings for Spring celebrations!

• Make a wish jar full of tiny butterflies with Spring activities on them. For example: Fly a kite, Go ride your bike, Draw a picture of a beautiful garden, Take a family walk around the neighborhood. Have your children pull an activity to do each beautiful Spring Day! 

•  Use as a photo backdrop for cards, invitations and more!

 

Happy Decorating!

DIY Suncatcher Butterflies

Summer is in full swing around our house. Our newest 100 Things To Do This Summer chart is hung, graduation ceremonies and party fun has been had, freckles are showing up on noses, kiddie pools are getting indefinite use, and the "What are we going to do today?" grumbles are settling in.

The twins and I did this butterfly suncatcher project during our days of Pre-K homeschool. It is a great project that can be done by little hands or big!

The materials we used were: 

• Tissue paper in a variety of colors
• a pair of scissors 
• glue sticks
• a template with open spaces to fill

We also used a couple of little lunch trays. They are great for containing projects to one area for cleanup.

The butterfly template we used was found in this book! I love this series of books and have every one of the months and seasons.  These books have many ideas and projects for homeschooling.

 
Next, the girls chose the colors they wanted for each empty space in the suncatcher. I helped them cut the pieces to fit but older children will be able to do this by themselves. 

They used their glue sticks around the edges of each cut out space and placed the correct piece of tissue paper where they belonged.

After filling in each empty space with a different color tissue paper, they were done! 

  
The template we used had a butterfly body to stick on the completed project. Here is one glued and completed! 

They were very proud of their projects and we hung them on our sliding glass doors to let the sun dance through their pretty colored wings! 

This is an easy faux stained glass project to do that is fun and a beautiful decoration! This project can be used to decorate your doors and windows throughout the year with a variety of different shaped stencils! 

  

Check out another great BUTTERFLY WALL ART CRAFT with FREE templates here!
Happy creating!

Apple Craft with Yarn

Today I thought it would be fun to post an Autumn craft using chunky yarn, some recycled cardboard and other found materials! 

As I mentioned before, I am homeschooling our twin preschoolers this year. Our letter of the week was A so I decided to do an Apple yarn craft. The materials were ones I already had in my craft stash. The idea sparked from a similar craft my Mom used to do with us when we were kids!

Easy, eco-friendly and kids of all ages can enjoy!

First, we took two round cardboard pieces that I saved from frozen pizza packages. 

There are many choices of recycled cardboard you can find around the house: old cereal boxes, boxes from mailed packages, appliance boxes, old cardboard storage boxes, etc.

Then, I cut a slight rounded V shape into the top and a little dip into the bottom to give it more of an apple shape.

We used this chunky Lion Brand yarn. Chunkier yarn is better because it covers more surface quickly. 

We also used old-fashioned Elmer's white glue. It was the easiest choice for little hands to squeeze and apply themselves.

Next came the application of the yarn. I cut about 12 arm lengths of yarn for this project 

which seemed to work out just perfectly. 

We started from the outside and squeezed one line of glue around the entire shape of the apple.

Here is row #2! Once the first line was in place, it was easier for them to keep going around and around to complete rows. 

You can also easily help adjust the rows because the glue is slow to dry. 

Don't worry about mistakes or drips on the yarn, the glue dries clear! 

After the project was complete, we went on a search for the perfect apple stick! This gave the project an opportunity to dry and the twins got time to stretch their legs and play in the the backyard scouting for a stick to use.  

Then, we applied it to the back using masking tape! 

For a finishing touch, I dug a few green pipe cleaners from my stash, twisted both ends onto the stick and had them shape it into a leaf. A great craft to do on an Autumn afternoon!!

Think of the all the possible different shapes for holiday crafting using this simple yarn technique: pumpkins, autumn leaves, hearts, candy canes, shamrocks, stars... just about anything your imagination can dream up! 

** Happy Crafting! **

Making Autumn Lanterns

Crafting with 5 little ones can be tricky business. You must be prepared to spend an entire day on just one project!

We made autumn lanterns out of clean jars (baby food jars, salsa jars, spaghetti jars). Sometimes I feel my criteria for a certain jarred food item lies in whether or not the jar has a smooth surface for future crafting.

Setting up the craft area before calling in the troops is key.

First, I cleaned and dried the jars. Each girl picked a tissue paper color to decorate and I cut the paper in strips to fit their particular size jar.

The twins were occupied with snacks and we were ready to go!


We painted a line on the outside of the jar with Mod Podge and then placed a strip of tissue paper on top. Continuing, until the entire jar was covered.


After the jars were completely covered, we let them dry. We were not particularly fussy about the top lid edge or the underneath. The top we planned on covering with ribbon.


There was a brief intermission with a session of playing outside while the jars dried. Then, a coat of Mod Podge was applied over top of the tissue paper to seal it.


While this final layer was drying, I proceeded to create endless amounts of tiny maple leaves using a hole punch.

Also during this time, Grace took a much needed nap, Daddy came home, dinner was made and consumed, and Sophia put together every puzzle in the house after a spontaneous wardrobe change to a bride dress (but, of course).

We then came back to attack our unfinished jars with an arsenal of paper leaves, ribbon from Maya Road, and (the greatest invention for crafting with children) glue dots!

Sophia shows off her tiny leaf decoration!

Grace wakes up and eats scrambled eggs for dinner!

Silly Isabella tries to sneak into the craft area.

A dance party is held!


And then finally... the finished project!


Our beautiful lanterns..worth the wait!


Perhaps for some more than others.

New Spring Arrivals

I've caught a creative bug and it just may stick around for awhile! On a recent craft run, I bought a ton of new things for some new Spring projects.

We've used other kits before but this Tie Dye Kit by Jacquard is the best I've come across so far. It has a dye fixer which is the key to bright, vibrant colors. I'm hoping to purchase some blank dresses from Dharma Trading Co. for a big tie dying party!



Another project I thought I'd tackle were the pajama bottoms from Heather Ross's new book, Weekend Sewing: More Than 40 Projects and Ideas for Inspired Stitching.

My mom had recently purchased this book and created some fabric napkins (which are super nice and a great way to reduce paper napkin usage, by the way) and I was more than willing to steal borrow it from her!

I got some cotton fabric from Joann's, held my breath and hoped for something slightly better than terrible. I actually completed Lana's pair today. Here they are!





I have some other project ideas rattling around in my head as well. I bought this cotton yarn by Sugar'n Cream to create a mini version of a vintage granny square afghan.

Cross your fingers on this one. I'll show you the finished product when it's complete. That may not come for some time, though. I'm quite an accomplished procrastinator.



Also, snagged these bandanas to make a couple of dresses seen on the Daisy Janie blog. I gave myself plenty of time for this one, however I may still be working on them come midnight of July 3rd.

Just kidding! Two cute babies I know will definitely be sporting these at the local parade this year!



What crafty project ideas are tugging at your art strings these days?

Finger Painting

We had a big finger painting session after dinner tonight! The girls were very timid artists at first. They used cute little finger brushes, sponges and foam stamps. They drew pretty houses and delicately dipped to spell out their names.









It wasn't long before all their cautions were thrown into the windy night, however. The roller brush came barreling in, colors got mixed, accusations of paint hoarding were thrown around, washcloths turned black with mistakes, and Mom almost lost her patience. Almost.





Casualties included the dining room table, 4 of the 8 chair covers, the sliding glass door handle, both the kitchen AND the bathroom sink, one unsuspecting wall and every last ounce of what Sophia was wearing. Sigh. I suppose they all needed a good cleaning anyway.

Really..what good is a finger painting session if you can’t get your hands a little messy?