We find tools for painting everywhere. For this butterfly craft, we ventured into the bathroom for a painting tool. We made a sponge painted butterfly craft using a loofah bath sponge.
Supplies for Butterfly Craft:
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- Loofah Bath Sponge (I bought a package of 2 at Dollar Tree)
- Paint
- Craft stick
- Pipe cleaner
- Butterfly tempalte
- Glue
- Scissors
- Paintbrush (to paint the craft stick)
We used washable paint and was able to wash the paint from the loofahs immediately after use, so we can reuse them.
Directions for Butterfly Craft:
1. Paint craft stick and allow to dry.
2. Print Butterfly tempalte. If your child is using scissors have them cut it out.
3. Choose your paint colors and put some on plate large enough to dip the sponge.
4. Dip your sponge in the paint and dab onto the butterfly. Allow to dry.
5. Fold the pipe cleaner in half and curl the ends to make antennae for the butterfly. Glue to the craft stick.
6. Glue the craft stick to the the middle of the butterfly’s wings.
You could complete this craft in many different ways. We used crepe paper here and watercolors here. You could also use Do A Dot Markers or pom poms to paint to the butterfly or cover it in tissue paper.
Extend the Activity:
- Study the butterfly life cycle with this fun activity from Playdough to Plato.
- Read books about butterflies: Explore My World Butterflies
|| My, Oh My–A Butterfly!: All About Butterflies (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library)
- Watch a butterfly metamorphosis up close with this Butterfly Garden.
- Go outside and look for butterflies.
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Hi, what can you use instead of a loofah and get quite the same effect?
Thank you 🙂
Hi Melanie these might work. They will not be the exact same but the process will be similar: balled up paper, balled up plastic shopping bag, balled up cheesecloth.
Did you do one color first then allow to dry and do the second color?
We didn’t allow dry time in between – there is some bleeding of colors but not much. You could definitely allow the paint to dry between colors though 🙂
We did not let it dry between the two colors, but the paint was not thickly applied and had started drying before we added the second color.
What sort of glue did you use? Superglue?! I’ve tried a couple of types of glue and couldn’t get lolly sticks or pipe cleaners to stick at all. Stapled lolly sticks in the end and gave up to pipe cleaners! Any tips?
We often use a glue gun when working with pipe cleaners and wooden sticks. You could also wrap the pipe cleaner around the craft stick and then form your antennae, so that no glue is needed to attach the pipe cleaner. White school glue should work to attach the craft stick to the paper, but will need time to dry.