Crafty Activities » Here We Grow!

Lil had her best friend over to play for an entire day while her mommy went on a short trip. I had lots of fun in the sun planned, but the rain started right in the middle of our wagon ride and didn’t let up for hours.

The girls were getting stir crazy, but a simple craft idea kept them occupied for a while. This one is super easy, and adjusts well for older kids.   This is something I threw together in a flash but it ended up providing even more play opportunities than I’d imagined.

You’ll need: colorful papers, a gluestick and scissors.

Optional: crayons, markers, glitter…
any of your kids’ favorite art supplies for additional embellishing.

Fold a few sheets of paper in half, right down the middle. Construction paper works great.    Cut fun/silly shapes from the fold… they will form the ‘butterflies’ when unfolded.   Older kids can cut their own shapes and get really creative with this part. Our gals are too young for scissors so I quickly cut several pieces for them to work with.

Don’t think too much about cutting the perfect shape. It ends up working well no matter what you cut out, so you can just snip away and have a plethora of fun pieces in an instant.   Thats why this is a fast craft to get started with the little ones when they’re feeling less than patient.   They glued the pieces onto full sheets of paper to create their own butterfly gardens.

Bonus: the scraps from cutting out the pieces ended up providing lots of fun for the toddlers, too.   They were delighted to unfold the cut papers and discover an unexpected mask.   This fragile mask will be torn in half pretty quickly, but the ladies didn’t seem to mind.  They liked playing with the scraps almost as much as doing the project itself.

Once they were finished with their collages and running around with their masks, our little ones became  fascinated with trying to fit the remaining cut pieces back into their original pages, like a puzzle.   Hooray for simple fun that goes a long way.