"Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least." ~Goethe~

21 January 2009

Tissue paper butterflies and crafting fun ...

The last few days have not been too exciting.  Mostly just hanging around the house, buying things for Em's birthday party and working like a mad woman trying to finish my current blanket.  I am nearly done with variegated section so that I can move on to the border, edging and the flowers I want to put on it.  It has not been easy sticking with this project with all those other colors of yarn calling out to me.  It has been torture!!

Today the girls really did a fine job with getting their lessons done in a timely manner once I told them we would be working on the decorations for Em's party.  Busy little bee's I tell you!  Em decided that she wanted to have a butterfly theme.  I was happy about that being they are so colorful.  And everyone is these parts knows that anywhere you can add color this last week and a half is more than welcome.  Yes, it is still gray and gloomy out.  Blah!!  Anyhoo, The girls decided that they wanted to make coffee filter flowers and butterflies.  They turned out awesome!  So sometime tomorrow the little pretties will be taped up around the dining room with the balloons and streamers.  I thought it was very interesting how much concentration Brenna was giving to all her creations.  Very intense for a 4 yr. old.  All of her items had to have tons of color on them and Em's was "dainty".
the girls at work
some of the flowers
some of my crochet flowers (pattern over at Lucy's)
all the finished pretties!
The girls did a lot of work on all the decorations.  We did really well as far as cost for all the decorations and cups and the like this year also.  We only spent $15 for all the materials!  Granted we had a few things already like the coffee filters, markers, and water color paints.  

The girls will be making "stained glass" butterflies at the party to take home with them.  All you need for that is foam sheets, tissue paper (different bright colors), elmers glue, hot glue gun, wax paper, pipe cleaners, thin sheer ribbon and a butterfly pattern.  You take your butterfly pattern (found on the net at any coloring page site) and trace the outline on one foam sheet.  Hold the two sheets of foam together and cut out the shape.  Then hold both pieces again and cut the inside of the butterfly out leaving about an 1/2" edge all around, making a frame of sorts (you can see them at the top of the finished pretties pic).  Then you tear a piece of wax paper larger than your butterfly frame and have the "girls" glue torn bits of tissue paper all over the wax paper (big enough to fit the inside of the butterfly).  When done let this dry.  I speed it up with a hair dryer.  When the tissue paper sheet is dry enough you should be able to peel it off the wax paper.  Take your sheet and place it on top of one of the butterfly forms to make sure it fits.  If it does, place a bead of hot glue around the inside edge of the butterfly and lay down your tissue paper sheet.  Then take your pipe cleaner, shape into the antennae and glue it in the middle of where the head should be.  Then take a piece of ribbon (whatever length you want), form a loop and glue this right on top of the antennae.  Put a bead of hot glue around the edge and then take the top butterfly frame and place this on top matching up edges.  The last step is to trim the tissue paper sheet that is hanging out from the edges and hang the butterfly where you want.  TADA!!!!  That is it!

Well I'm taking a break from all the day's fun activities and going to plop myself down in a chair to work on some more of the current blanket.  I must finish that soon before I go crazy.  That and for the fact that Julie (aka FarmerJulie) is wanting to start a hexagon blanket also and we are going to make it a "group" thing to keeps us going on it.  I'll do mine and she'll do one for herself.  Can't wait!  Now we just have to get my friend Di to finish her project she is working on so she can start one also.  Well off to the cozy chair for the evening!  Toodles Noodles!!!  :)  (I'm so messed up!)

2 comments:

  1. Oh, that looks like SO much fun. What beautiful flowers and butterflies. Perfect for a dreary wintery day out. Could you send some my way, please? I need some color in my life.

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  2. Fun projects, I love the paper flowers. I remember making something like that in grade school.

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