The change of season is a great excuse for a craft, no? Here in Australia we’re moving from winter to spring and as we break away from the cold for the warmer months ahead, gardens are coming to life. The very hungry caterpillars have eaten their fair share of leafy goodness and are going through that amazing transformation into glorious butterflies. They make me think of this quote by Rabindranath Tagore often – “The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.” – and how we should embrace and enjoy the small moments.
This craft is a great opportunity for this as we enjoy the company of little ones making their very own butterfly and cocoon. These need to be made over a couple days to allow the yarn to dry – hurrah for two days of crafting!
Before we go on, if you’re in the northern hemisphere and have headed into fall, why not check out our seasonal craft using fallen autumn leaves. You can see it here.
Now on to making these lovely butterflies escaping their cocoons.
What you’ll need
for the cocoons
– water balloons
– craft glue
– water
– green yarn
– scissors
for the butterflies
– pretty paper
– butterfly template*
– scissors
– glue
– string to hang them
* a simple way to get a template is to print a picture of a butterfly you like online that you can cut out. Otherwise, you can easily create one by folding the paper in half and cutting out what half a butterfly looks like along the folded edge.
What you’ll do
To make the cocoons, combine water and glue in a plastic container – 50:50 ratio.
Blow up your water balloons until they’re the size you’d like your cocoons to be.
Cut lengths of green yarn, submerge it in the water-glue mixture, squeeze any excess of back in to the container (a quick way to do this is run fingers down either side of the yarn) and wrap it in a random pattern around your water balloon.
Continue cutting and pasting on to your water balloon until you’ve covered it reasonably well.
Allow to dry – you could either dry them on non-stick baking paper or use a peg to attach them to a clothes hanger (though if you do that you’ll need to put something underneath to catch any drips).
Once they are completely dry (around 24 hours), pop the water balloon and remove it from inside the yarn.
Voila, cocoons!
Use your scissors to cut butterflies out of your pretty paper.
Attach a butterfly to each cocoon using a dab of glue on the back.
Cut a length of string and tie it to the top so you can hang your cocoon.
All that’s left to do is sit back and watch them flutter in the spring breeze.
