What is a better way to celebrate that spring is here with young kids than to do a craft together!? This butterfly nature craft is a perfect opportunity to have fun, get outside, encourage the imagination and teach new vocabulary with your young artists.
This multi step project allows you to prep a little and the artists to paint, explore, and design. It’s fun and I’m pretty sure it can keep your artist happily entertained for a WHILE! Let’s dive in…
The first step is to collect some cardboard.
Grab a cardboard box and cut it into a fun shape. We did a butterfly in this sample, but you could also keep it simple with a rectangle and turn that into a picture frame!
Divid the cardboard into sections with rubber bands.
Simply slip rubber bands onto your cardboard image to create some natural divisions in the design.
Painting comes next!
We kept it pretty simple with including only 3 tempera paints for our sample and a q-tip for each color. One thing with creating is we can control the mess by how many supplies we put out. Don’t be afraid to put out less.
It allows artists to experiment and try new things. Simplicity breeds invention. For example, we didn’t give purple paint. In the creating process, colors can be combined to make new colors and purple can be created with the colors we provided.
This paint project allows your artist to learn some new vocabulary.
- They can paint by doing lots of dots to create a pointillism look. The goal is to collage each section of the butterfly with color to fill the whole image.
- They can practice painting semetrical so the sides are identical or not- it’s up to their taste!
While the butterfly dries, your artist can go on a scavenger hunt.
Can they pick, find or cut small nature clippings like these:
-
- dandelion
- grass clipping
- leaf
- feather
- stick
Once the butterfly is dry, your artist can stick the little nature clippings into the rubber bands on the butterfly.
This butterfly nature craft can be done or you can explore with more details and textures.
We added some circle stickers to help hold the natural elements in place and allow another texture to be in the project. Kids love stickers, right!? You can’t go wrong with stickers as a detail.
It is our hope that in each step of the project your artist can create, play and imagine the possibilities! There’s even a good chance that on the nature scavenger hunt, your artist starts playing organically outside. It’s a win-win.
If this craft sounds fun, but you don’t want to do all the prep- you are in luck. We have a few kits listed in our online store. You can jump over there and see if they are still in stock!
Have fun and get out and enjoy the blooming plants this spring season!
Time is going so quickly.
One day, I had this idea of creating a nature shelf. I was staring at this little shelf in my kitchen holding pictures and art and thinking how special it would be to have a nature version. I pictured a shelf dedicated to holding small things collected out doors, yet I knew it would be collecting so much more than just those treasures. Let me show you what I mean.
I went to Hobby Lobby one day for paint and as Hobby Lobby can do, it had me wandering all the other aisles. I saw that wood shelf above and immediately recalled my need for a nature shelf, so I brought it home and played around with where it would go.
Since we are a family of artists, we don’t have a lot of empty walls in our house. The walls are full of our passions, creative processes and journeys of exploration in time and who we are. I view them as a living museum of us. But, I found a space for this new shelf. It would live in my art room. Right where I sew, paint my journals, and even type this message out to you.
We found shells! The first two days of our break, I sat in a chair happily just decompressing and watching my kids play and enjoy their youth. It was like my body literally was saying, “It’s ok to just be.” Then I found myself walking, reading, playing, and the shell hunt began.
I am an Enneagram 4 (a creative with all kinds of feels) so it’s probably no surprise that I now look back at these shells collected, and I remember the joy of the moment, the fun of the hunt, the youthful innocence in each of us as we shared the joy of new treasures with one another.
The shells are like souvenirs of memories made with my family. The nature shelf holds those shells and those memories on display.
There’s lots of empty squares on this shelf. I can’t wait for summer and warmer weather to finally arrive, so I can do more fun outside with my people. My shelf treasures will grow as a result as well.
