Eric Carle inspired Butterfly! (and cocoon)

This project was inspired by an Eric Carle Instagram craft challenge - they're so great for coming up with new ideas! It's a very simple project - younger makers will need some help with the folding and cutting. I've laid out a simplified pattern for Eric Carle's butterfly, but feel free to design your own butterfly!

You will need:

A4 sheet of plain paper

Paints

Two pipe cleaners

Small plastic bottle and cut up pieces of newspaper for the Cocoon

1. First, fold your piece of paper in half lengthways, then fold each half into the middle, open up and you should have four evenly spaced creases.

2. For our Eric Carle inspired butterfly, we used the creases as a guide to paint a purple, then green, then greeny-blue, followed by a blue stripe. We used poster paints and watered them down so they were more of a wash, and went on quickly with a big brush. (I often use a pastry brush, great for painting bigger areas quickly)

We painted the back the same way too, but this really is optional.

3. Once dry, fold the piece of paper in half the other way, so you can clearly see the middle of your butterfly.

We then used thick yellow poster paint to splodge on two round shapes at either end of the purple stripe, and yellow lines between the purple and green, the blue and greeny-blue stripe, and a thick one across the middle of the greeny-blue stripe. Then three dots on either edge of the green stripe.

4. We added a few dots at the top of the blue stripe, then mixed a little red into the yellow for some orange dots on either edge of the greeny-blue stripe.

5. Next, red circles in the corners and small dots in the middle of the orange ones. A red line and a dot on half of the bottom yellow line, and another dot above it on the greeny-blue stripe. Add a dab of orange to the top red circles.

6. Then thick purple lines in the middle of the green and the blue stripes, plus purple dots in the bottom circles. Last but not least a short green line in the middle of the purple stripe and some green dots at either end of the top purple line.

7. When dry, start folding or pleating your piece of painted paper longways, as if you're making a fan. If you're crafting with little ones, maybe make the pleats bigger, so they can be more involved with the folding.

8. In order for the pipe cleaner to be wrapped around the centre of your butterfly more easily, you need to cut a triangle from the middle of your fan - making sure you don't cut all the way through! Aim for a small triangle that's at least half the width of your folds. Make sure you cut it on the non-decorated side too.

Cutting through the paper fan can be hard, so best done by an adult.

9. Pipe cleaner time! We made some antennae with a piece of black pipe cleaner and then used a whole yellow one and made a hook shape at one end (the length we wanted our butterfly's body to be).

10. Hook it over the antennae, then hook the whole thing over the centre of your butterfly wings.

11. Start wrapping the rest of the pipe cleaner tightly around the body, and then over and around the wings to secure them. Wrap the remaining part of the pipe cleaner around the head part, so the antennae are secure too.

12. We wrapped a small piece of red pipe cleaner around the top part to keep our butterfly looking as EC as possible, but this is totally up to you. Dot on eyes with a black marker pen.

13. For the cocoon, you need a small plastic bottle that's at least as tall as the length of one of the butterfly wings.

Cut up some newspaper, water down some PVA (craft) glue, soak the paper pieces in the watery glue and cover the bottle in papier mache. Messy but fun! It really doesn't need to be neat.


14. Once dry, paint it brown, orange and yellow stripes. Have the colours on one plate and let them mix together a bit, so you get a mix of colours in the stripes, and they meld into each other.

Egg carton sheep

These sheep are the first project in 'Make Your Own Farm Animals' and they're really quick to do - a few egg boxes, cotton wool and a black felt tip, and you'll have your own flock before you know it!

You will need:
Egg carton
Pencil
Scissors
Cotton wool
Glue
Black felt tip pen (or a Sharpie if you're happy to use a permanent pen)

1. Cut out an egg cup, roughly first, then neaten up the edge. Turn it upside down and draw a cross on top with a pencil (see below), and continue the lines down the sides of your egg cup.
This should give you four well spaces legs.

2. Use a black felt tip pen or a Sharpie to colour in the bottom part of the legs, so they are more chunky.

3. With your scissors, snip up the sides of each leg (8 snips) - don't worry if you snip too far, you'll soon be covering the top part with cotton wool.

4. Snip the card HALFWAY BETWEEN each leg too (4 snips)

5. Push all the flaps of card, between the legs, under your sheep, leaving the four legs down.

6. Cover the top of the egg cup with a thin layer of glue. Tease out a small piece of cotton wool with your fingers and stick it on top of your sheep. A small amount of cotton wool looks best.

7. Draw a head on either the egg carton lid or some spare cereal box card. Keep the shape simple so it's easier to cut out.

8. Use the black pen to draw two circles where you would like the eyes to go and colour-in around the circles. Add a black dot in the eye if you want. Glue in place.

9. For a lying down sheep, cut a shallower egg cup from your carton and cover the whole thing with cotton wool. Glue on the head.

TIP: A white correction pen (like Tipp-Ex) is handy for eyes if you want to add them after colouring-in the head, or you want to make a sleeping sheep with closed eyes.

Many more animal projects like this in my book, 'Make Your Own Farm Animals'

Make a city scene - crafts for kids

I've been going through A LOT of cardboard tubes recently, and the city tubescapes we did a few weeks back got me thinking about making a bigger city scene that could be added to and played with. The first thing was to make the tubes less, well, tubey.....!

You'll need:
Cardboard tubes (toilet paper and kitchen paper tubes)
Scissors
Paint
Black felt tip or gel pen
For the trees:
Cereal box card
Brown felt tip
Glue stick
Grey paper (or painted paper) for the street

1. Take your toilet paper tube or kitchen paper tube and flatten it on the table with you hand. Press firmly along the two creases.

2. Squeeze the tube open, line up the two creases you've just made, and flatten with your hand - making two more creases. Press firmly along them both again.

3. If you want to make your buildings different heights, this is a good time to cut across your flattened tube. Now, when you squeeze it back into shape, instead of being round, you should have more of a square shape.

4. Paint your buildings any colours you like, or leave some plain, like we did.

If you want to make trees, this would be a good time to paint some cereal box card green. Try two different colours of green. Add more blue to make a darker shade.

5. When the paint's dry, press along the creases again, to get them back into shape, then use the black pen to add windows. Draw small rectangles, colour some in and leave others open. Add any extra details you want - Daisy made a hospital, shop and a bakery. It's absolutely up to you!

6. For the tree base, cut a strip of plain cereal box card. The trees can be any size you want, but if you want them to be a similar size to ours, keep the width of the strip to about 2cm/3/4in or less.  Cut the strip into similar sized pieces, no more than about 3cm/1in. long (these measurements are just a guide, the card pieces don't need to be identical or precise).

7. Now, fold in both ends of a piece of card, so you leave a small section in the middle between the folds. This is going to be the trunk of your tree and shouldn't be too wide. It might take a minute or two to get the hang of the folding, but again it doesn't need to be precise, as long as the card piece sits steady.

8. Make a small snip down both creases (snip a little extra out to make it easier to slot in the treetop later) - then cut a 'V' between the slots for the tree's branches.

9. Keeping in mind the size of your tree base, draw a treetop shape on the painted green card and cut it out. Keep the shape simple if you prefer.

10. Draw the trunk on the tree base with a brown felt tip pen.

11. Rub some glue on the back of the branches only, and slot the treetop in place. Leave it flat to dry (you could weigh it down with a book).
Fold the flaps back and your tree is ready!