Butterfly Craft Projects

So, what can you do with the cool butterfly wings from your Butterfly Smooch Stick favors, once the lip balm tube has been removed for use? Don't throw them away!!  My daughters and I came up with a couple of fun craft ideas that would be great for a kids' party.  Just think...you can get the favors and the activity taken care of all at once!

The first technique is probably the easiest.  Just take jumbo craft sticks (the size of tongue depressors), some paint, and adhesive magnet strips .

Cut the craft sticks in half and round out the corners with your scissors, then paint them a dark brown color to match the brown of the butterfly wings.

Once dry, insert the painted craft stick into the slits on the butterfly.

Turn it over and apply your adhesive magnet.  This will help to hold everything in place, so that the wings don't slip around at all.

Add some decoration on the top using 3D "puff paint" and/or little self-adhesive jewels.  You can bend the wings up just a little to make the butterfly look more realistic.  Easy and fun!!  

The other idea takes a little better manual dexterity,  but is also very kid-friendly.  Just take brown chenille pipe cleaners, regular size craft sticks (Popsicle sticks), and little suction cups .

Cut the sticks down to the appropriate size and round out the corners, like you did with the other project.

You can add a little hot glue to hold things in place, if you'd like. 

Wrap your pipe cleaners around the stick to form the body of the butterfly. We used three pipe cleaners for each craft stick.  

You can even make legs.  The pipe cleaners give the body a cute, fuzzy texture.

Slip your butterfly body into the slits on the wings.  If you decided to make legs, you may have to bend them down temporarily in order to slide the whole thing in easily.

You could just leave the butterfly like this to play with, or you could add a suction cup to the bottom so that it can be affixed to things.

Attach your suction cup to the bottom using hot glue.

The butterflies look great attached to windows because the translucence of the vellum paper allows the light to shine through.

 Do you have any other good ideas?  I'd LOVE to hear about them!

Clothing Swap Extravaganza

Last night some friends (and friends of friends) and I had a clothing swap. Everyone brought items that were in reasonably good condition, but that no longer fit or got any use for one reason or another.  Most ladies came with one or two bags stuffed with stuff.  We put it all into piles of similar items: shoes in one place, shirts in another, and so on.  

There was one room called the "safe room" where people could put anything that was not up for grabs.  This could be the clothes that you wore when you got there, or anything new that you had found and were laying claim to.  

My pictures are not super exciting (sorry), but I was trying not to snap any that included people who were only partially clothed.  This was very difficult, since everyone pretty much walked around in their underwear trying on things for the majority of the evening.  We also had a big vat of sangria and some snacks.  It was really fun.  I highly recommend the concept.

Someone even brought a few dog clothes.  I wish I had snapped a picture of Ernie wearing his new sweater. He was only slightly OK with it, since it was a very hot Seattle evening.  He'll be dapper come Fall though!

I think everyone ended up with some great stuff (I know I did) and all of the unclaimed items will be donated to a women's shelter or for the victims of the Taylor Bridge fire in central Washington.

Repurposed TicTac Boxes for Travel Spices

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Repurposed Camping Matches Container

Look at the cool little thing that I put together to hold our matches when we go camping!  

I got the idea from this blog post, which I think is really cute but sort of impractical for camping because of the glass.  We occasionally buy gum in these plastic containers that I realized would be perfect to repurpose for the job because it won't break, yet will keep the matches nice and dry.  I added super fine sandpaper to both the outside and inside of the lid, so there's plenty of place to strike a flame.

You might also want to read my Family Camping Essentials List.