DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Dragonfly Egg Carton Craft

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

Watching the colors spread when you paint with water color paints can be a lot of fun.  If you use two primary colours (like blue and yellow) you can see what color is made when they mix (green).

Or you can just use colours you think are pretty together like we did!

If you take a paintbrush with no color on it and "paint" your sheet of paper with water so it's damp before you start your watercolor painting, the colors will run together more than if you paint on dry paper.

Materials:

• children's markers -- crayola or similar
• 2 coffee filters,
• water spritz bottle or small brush (paintbrush, toothbrush, etc).
• egg carton,
• paint and paintbrush -- use a color of paint that looks nice with the marker colours
• scissors,
• tape or stapler
• Optional:  wiggly eyes.
• Optional:  Pipe cleaner

Instructions:

• Cover your work space with newspaper or paper towel.  Newspaper might color your project when you get it wet, so pick a piece without too much ink on it.
• Use water color paint to make a nice pastel pattern on a piece of paper (you can color the wings another way but watercolor is fun and very pretty -- it reminds me of the iridescent wings dragonflies have).
• Repeat with the second piece of paper, trying to keep the colors similar.
• Let dry.
• Fan fold the paper and staple in the center.
• Cut a strip of three or four cups from an egg carton.  This might require adult assistance.
• Paint the egg carton (we used metalic acrylic paint, but lots of paints will work).
• Set aside to dry.
• Glue two wiggly eyes, paper eyes or cheerios onto the front of the egg carton strip
• Slide the wings in between two of the egg carton cups.
• You can put both sheets of wings in one slot or you can put them in two slots.
• You can add a dab of glue to hold them in but ours seemed to stay without any help.