Autumn Butterflies

OK. One last butterfly craft. Are you ready?

This is a great one for autumn. We collected fall leaves and layered them between sheets of paper towel and pressed them under a stack of heavy books for two weeks.

Once the leaves were pressed and dried we arranged them into butterflies. The stems made great antennas.

We glued them together and picked our favorite one to be framed.


Have fun creating!

Book Reviews: Butterflies

These are some books we've enjoyed over the last couple weeks--

Green Butterfly: a superdog adventure
By:Raphael Thierry

Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly
By: Alan Madison
























Fancy Nancy: Bonjour, Butterfly
By: Jane O'Connor
























Butterfly Butterfly
By: Petr Horacek















Happy Reading!


***Amy***

Butterfly Magnets

My daughter loves to paint so I picked up these shapes for her at Michaels for 29 cents a piece.

I know it's butterfly week but she wanted the bear too . . .

After painting them we let them dry and then put a magnet on the back of each one.

Don't they make a nice addition to the fridge?

***Amy***

Finger Butterfly

To make a finger butterfly you'll need:

contact paper
tissue paper
permanent marker
scissors

I used this pattern for my butterfly. The first one we did I cut out the butterfly, peeled it and then let my daughter cut pieces of tissue paper to decorate it. When she was done we laid it on a square of contact paper and then cut it out again. We cut slits in the center and put a small scrap piece of contact paper through it to loop around my daughters finger.




For the second butterfly I cut out shapes and we attempted to make a symmetrical butterfly.

For our last one I used a permanent marker to decorate the butterfly on contact paper and then sandwiched an orange piece of tissue paper between two pieces of the contact paper.

Have fun!

***Amy***

Symmetrical Butterflies

To make symmetrical butterflies first cut the butterfly shapes out of paper.


Then use a crayon sharpener or old potato peeler to make crayon shavings


Place the shavings on one half of your butterfly


Fold the butterfly in half


Cover with several sheets of newspaper--like 5 or 6. Run a hot iron over the paper for several seconds. Open your butterflies and ta-da they're symmetrical.


***Amy***

Making Stamps

I'm in denial. Fall is coming but I feel like spring just ended. The summer was so mild here this year that it feels like we missed out on all the traditional summer activities--going swimming, throwing water balloons, washing the car. I kept waiting for it to get warmer, it never did, and now it's over.

So since I'm in denial of the turning leaves and crisp autumn air I'm dedicating the next two weeks to something un-fall like--butterflies.

Last week my daughter and I made our own butterfly stamps. We used foam paper to cut out our shapes (a butterfly, a flower, and the letter B) and then adhered them to a thick piece of foam.




Who knew making your own stamps could be so easy.

Check back later this week and next week for more butterfly activities.

***Amy***