Day 145: Butterflies

Our Caterpillars metamorphosed into butterflies today.  It took me about 5 minutes to figure out exactly how to do it, but sitting down at the table with the caterpillars I figured out that I could turn the pieces into a butterfly.

To do this, i needed more egg cartons- another 14 egg holders actually... thankfully, we have about 20 egg cartons under the sink :-p

Once i had the egg cups separated, I poked "body" holes in the tops of 5 cups.  Then, on the sides of 8, i poked holes to feed pipe cleaners through.

After all this was done, Mike helped Penny and I helped Iris, we started by hooking a pipe cleaner to the antenna of the caterpillar's head on the inside, then we fed 2 body pieces onto the pipe cleaner (see picture for better understanding).  Then, we wrapped 2 pipe cleaners around the main body pipe cleaner to make "wings" we fed the wing pieces on, 2 per each wing.  I just made a little loopy thing at the edges so that the wings didn't fall back off.  To finish it off, we fed the last three body pieces onto the body pipe cleaner and tied it off- i like the little swoopy tail that mike did more than my loopy thing lol.  But, here are the caterpillar turned butterflies!  OH! right, we also glued new pom-poms to the wings that didn't have any :-p  I almost forgot about that!

Day 143: Caterpillars

Sorry about last night, time got away from me and before I knew it, it was 11 and I hadn't blogged.  At that point, I was just too tired :-p

I was a little bummed out yesterday because I was all ready to make Jelly with the girls, and found out that I was out of lemon juice.  So, I had to come up with a quick backup craft, and thanks to my wonderful hubby, we came up with these cute little caterpillars.  They were a great toddler crafts, and very easy for the girls to make on their own.

I know we did something similar to these on January 1st, but those were painted dragons, these are in fact different :-p

needed items:

egg carton
glue
pom poms
pipe cleaner
googly eyes

Mike and I cut the egg holders out of the carton then the girls were able to do the rest of the craft almost completely alone.  They each had a bottle of glue and got to put a dot of glue on top of 5 of the 6 egg cups and then pick 5 pom poms to put on top.  for the head, Mike and I poked 2 holes into the sides of the egg cup and the girls got to make antennas with pipe cleaners.  Then, 2 dots of glue and 2 googly eyes on the front, and we were done!  They are super cute, and now they are looking forward to making butterflies in a few days. (hint hint hint) But first- JELLY! lol

Day 1

So, today began Craft Year.  I put a lot of thought into today's craft because I want to be able to repeat it on December 31st of this year.  This way, I will be able to show the progress the entire family has made over the year.  A problem that I am running into is that it is hard to find a craft easy enough for a two and a three year old to join in on, but one that is also unique and interesting for Mom- aka me.  I found a cool New Year's dragon on Pinterest, my new best friend, and with some help from my wonderful husband, it was fairly easy to do, even with a screaming two year old!

All we did was take 1 cardboard egg carton, some acrylic paint, a few pom-poms, googly eyes, a large jingle bell, and some 1/4" elastic.  I cut apart the egg carton and let the kids paint the cups.  After painting was completely, I poked holes in the egg cups to string them together with the elastic, and attached a jingle bell at the end.

It is sort of hard to see here, but you can see in the red one behind that they are strung together with elastic.  I turned the first one on edge to be the "mouth" of the dragon.  Once I attached the construction paper tongues, pom poms, and eyes, here are the final products.  Note to anyone who may try this at home, the only way I can get pom-poms to stick to anything is by using hot glue or super glue.  I know that the super glue is going to end poorly one day, with me glued to SOMETHING haha.

On a slight side note, I am realizing quickly that Penny, my two year old, is just TOO young for many of our crafts.  She loses interest quickly, and gets VERY mad when I don't let her do things, like pour paint into cups, or use scissors-- does she think I'm insane?!  I hope that it gets better throughout the year.
And finally, this is the "before" picture.  My crafting supplies, laid out on our small dining room table, on January 1st, 2013.  I hope to take an "after" picture at the end of this year.  I am already trying to figure out where I am going to put my soon to be acquired supplies!  I think my 31 rep is going to LOVE me haha.  Peace, Love, and CRAFTS!-- Kara!