Stained Glass Butterfly Crowns

Head on over to the CBC parents site to see how to make your own 

stained glass butterfly crown!

What a great craft to do to celebrate summers end.

(time to fit in all that last minute summer crafting)

Enjoy every last morsel of sun, summer and fun!

Toilet Paper Roll Butterflies.

I collect toilet paper rolls like a mad woman…

time to pull out a Springtime craft that will utilize my stash.

Enter the toilet paper roll butterfly!!!!

To make your own you will need:

toilet paper rolls

scissors

paint and brushes, (any colours you so wish)

twigs, (one thick one and two thin bits for antennae)

glue gun and glue sticks

creative enthusiastic helpers

To begin cut your toilet paper roll into 4 pieces.

Bend these at both ends so they form a "wing" shape...

like so!

To begin we painted our twig bodies and antennae black…this is optional…you can leave them plain.

Then paint some fancy designs on your "wings".  We did rainbows, polka dots…

we painted the inside of the "wings" as well.

Now let it dry…

Then glue it all together…glue the antennae onto the twig body

and then the wings onto the sides.

It should look something like this!

This was a great rainy day craft that channeled our creativity and LOVE of butterflies and Spring!

Not to mention it was easy to do, even for the littlest amongst us.

Bring on the butterflies!

Rainbow Lantern

To light up up our St.Patty's day celebration we decided to try our hand at creating a bright rainbow lantern. I have never done paper mache and as we were creating it I had my doubts it would all hold up once it was dry. I was happy to see that that it worked and that the process left us with a lovely lantern!

To create you will need

rainbow tissue paper

glue

balloon (we used a punching balloon for an extra large lantern)

paint brush

scissors 

battery operated tea light (or real tea light in a small pie plate)

To begin, cut your tissue paper colors into strips and then into squares.

Cover your work area with protection (this is going to get messy!)

Blow up your balloon.

Secure your balloon into a stand (a bowl or a strip of cardboard taped together to form a circle...) so that you don't have to hold your balloon up as you work. 

Mix your glue with water (with the ratio 4:1 ~ 4 parts glue, 1 part water).

Paint a strip of glue around the top of your balloon and place a layer of squares on top of the glue. Then cover the strip of squares in glue once again. Continue going around the same strip of color until you have three layers.

Keep going all the way down your balloon in strips, following the colors of the rainbow.

Tie a string around the top and hang to dry for 24 hours. 

Pop your balloon and pull out the pieces.

Add your candle....

and enjoy!

With warmth, 

Rainbow Sunbursts

This week we're featuring some

RAINBOW

crafts we've been working on!

We're still up to our hips in snow, but hope is in the air!!

Today we whipped up some colourful rainbow sunbursts…they serve no official purpose, but they do bring in some much needed colour into my home, and they were fun to make…art for the sake of art!

To make your own you will need:

food colouring

toothpicks

cardboard

paint & paintbrush

glue

To start mix up your food colouring…all the colours of the rainbow.

Then put in your toothpicks…soak them for about an hour.

After they are done drain them on paper towel…they will be dry in about another hour or so.

Aren't they pretty??!!

Next enlist the help of a pint sized friend…cut out circles of cardboard…

paint them whatever colour you wish…front and back and sides.

Next, when your paint is dry, cover the surface with white glue…just plain craft glue works fine.

Then start laying down your rainbow pattern with the toothpicks…

Eventually they will look like this.

Then take a piece of string and needle and poke a hole through the top for hanging!

Enjoy the "BURST" of rainbow goodness!  

Wishing you all colour, JOY and a "spring" in your step!

Rainbow Wreath & Flowers

We are mildly obsessed with rainbows over here. With spring around the corner and St.Patty's day inspiration all around, we thought we would have some fun and bring you a week of rainbow crafts! Today we are sharing our rainbow tissue paper flowers and our rainbow wreath. A fun way to bring some rainbow beauty to celebration, play, gifts, dress up... so many possibilities!

Here is what you will need

 rainbow colored tissue paper

 pipe cleaners

scissors

glue

To begin,  take a sheet of each color of your tissue paper and place them on top of each other.

 Next cut your stack into 4 squares and arrange them in the order of the rainbow on top of each other.

Then take your piles of tissue paper squares and fold it accordion style ~  folding it over 1/2 inch to 1 inch then folding it back the other way. It should look similar to a fan when you open the folds.

Tie the middle together with a pipe cleaner ~ leaving the majority of the pipe cleaner for the stem.

Next, use your scissors to form the shape of the petals, by rounding off each end of your folded fan.

Now you are ready to open your flower.  Gently and gradually pull the top sheets away from the others up towards what will be the center of the flower. 

 Repeat this step with each subsequent layer of tissue paper until you have done this for all of them.

After you have separated the layers play around...fluff them up and bring them to life!

There you have it!

Rainbow love.

With left over tissue paper we thought it would be nice to dress up with it a bit! The rainbow wreath is super simple. We twisted a pipe cleaner to fit the head. Cut rainbow tissue paper into squares, scrunched the paper into "little flowers" and glued them on to the pipe cleaner.

To top it off we cut some strips of rainbow tissue paper and stapled them on the back.

It was a hit!

Rainbows just seem to bring out the smiles.

In rainbows and sweet smiles,

Rainbow Heart Transparencies

Here's a super easy way to decorate your abode for the upcoming day of LOVE…

Rainbow Heart Transparencies

To make your own you will need:

cardstock

tissue paper (rainbow colours and white)

scissors

glue stick

To begin cut out a heart shape…cut out the inside too.

Now using your glue stick, glue white tissue paper to the underside.

Then…cut out strips of rainbow coloured tissue paper…

layer it side by side in the colours of the rainbow.

Trim off all the excess and it should look like this…pretty huh?

To put up in the window I put a few dabs of glue, (with the glue stick), on the backside…

the glue washes off easily when they come down…I find it looks nicer than tape and holds really well.

And that's it!  These are so easy to whip up…and they look so pretty.

Here's to celebrating LOVE in all its glory!