DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Stuffed Newspaper Butterfly Craft

Contributed by Leanne Guenther

Sometimes, bigger is better.  The girls have SO much fun making these larger than life crafts.

Tasha (6) and Kaitlyn (2) both enjoyed this project (especially trying to hold it up for the camera... )!

Materials:

• newspaper
• some color of paint.  We used crayola red, white and blue tempra paints and just mixed them together to make pink and purple
• something to sew up the sides... either:
  • stapler
     
    OR
  • hole punch and string/wool

Instructions:

• Take four full sheets of newspaper and lay them on top of each other (it's best if the top and bottom sheets are just black and white as it's harder to paint over the colored newspaper).
• Fold the newspaper in half diagonally to make a triangle.
• Staple up one of the sides
  • OPTION:  instead of stapling, punch holes with the hole punch all the way around.  Use string or wool and sew up one of the sides.
• Open up your pouch.  Stuff with crumpled up newspaper.
• Staple or sew the other side shut.
• Now do the WHOLE thing again to make a second triangle (wing).
• Take two more full sheets of newspaper and fold in half (the normal fold of a newspaper) and then half again to make a body shape.
• Staple all the way around two sides
  • OPTION:  instead of stapling, punch holes with the hole punch all the way around.  Use string or wool and sew up two of the sides.
• Open up your pouch.  Stuff with crumpled up newspaper.
• Staple or sew the third side shut.
• Paint the butterfly wings a base color (we used 1/4 crayola red and 3/4 crayola white to make this pink color).
• You could also use a sponge or a rag to spread it around.
• Let dry.
• You may wish to do a second coat.
• If you're hanging your butterfly from the wall, you only have to do the front.  If you're hanging it from the ceiling, you may wish to paint the back at this point
• Paint the butterfly body a base color (we added about 1/8 blue to the pink we mixed to make a purple color).  We used potatoes cut in half to stamp purple dots onto the wings
• Fold a piece of white paper in half and cut out a circle (you'll end up with two identical circles).
• Paint or color eyeballs and glue them to the body
• Cut out a mouth and paint or color that
• Staple the wings onto the body (an adult should do this) and hang up your butterfly!