handprint butterfly
For Mother's Day
I'm finding lately that Clementine isn't as interested in craft projects as she used to be. When I asked her if she wanted to make mother's day cards she replied, "No, maybe next week." This certainly wasn't the answer I was looking for! Pretend play is all she cares about: role playing, princesses, reenacting stories, singing songs putting on shows are all her priority. I needed to find a way to make this a fun project. Here's what happened:
She pretended to drive her imaginary car to a 'craft class' which she paid me one pretend dollar to attend. I, in turn, talked in a funny voice which somehow combined english nanny, old hollywood, and crazy lady into one. I introduced her to her imaginary friends that were seated in the chairs next to her. She giggled and covered her face when I told her Henry was in attendance. (That's a boy in her class that she likes because he's one of the only ones, according to her, that doesn't "go cwazy")
The "craft class" had to be broken into sessions in order to complete the project. We had 5 butterflies to make. The project is very simple.
- Trace hands onto a sheet of paper which will serve as a pattern (a pattern is not necessary if you are making only one butterfly!)
- Cut them out and label them.
- Use your pattern and cut out hands from thicker paper. We used watercolor paper. Card stock would also be fine.
- Decorate your wings! We used watercolors. Paint, marker, crayon, stickers, jewels, pompoms, glitter, collage or whatever else you can think of would also work.
- Cut out the body of the butterfly.
- Glue wings to body.
- Punch small holes at the top and use a chenille stem for the antennae
- Draw on eyes or use google eyes!
- Add a mouth, or a nose, or whatever you like!
Here she is happily painting butterfly wings. Between two "craft classes" she painted two sets of wings. It seemed too much to ask her to paint five sets so I went to the stack of art that she has made in preschool. I used the hand pattern to cut out three more sets of wings out of a watercolor painting that she had done last week. Perfect!
Once we had our wings taken care of and glued them onto the butterfly bodies we could add google eyes and antennae to all of them. Lastly, with a crayon in hand, Clementine added a mouth to each specially made butterfly; a big ol' smile. That definitely gave them some character! Our Mother's Day cards are finished!