Firefly Flashlight Craft!

This was a really fun little craft to make, and the second bug craft we did… M agreed to it (despite the craft strike) because a flashlight is involved.  Flashlights have batteries and anything with a battery is a sure thing with this kid. 

You will need:
A flashlight (find one that has a cord looped through it, or a key ring or something, as this is where you’ll attach the antennae), pipe cleaner, construction paper, marker, scissors, googley eyes, glitter (if you dare), a small container for the glitter (if you dare), and glue.  I ended up hot gluing the eyes onto our firefly to speed things up, although I think if someone had been patient enough for it to dry, regular white glue would have worked.

To begin, I folded our construction paper in half lengthwise and drew a half oval (roughly):

M cut it out and unfolded it to see the oval:

Apply glue in a pretty design all over your oval, which will be the wings: 

I dumped our little pack of gold glitter into a small applesauce container, and M used his fingers to pinch it and sprinkle it onto his firefly’s wings:

While the wings are drying, remove the cord (or key ring, or whatever) from your flashlight, and thread the pipe cleaner through.  Twist it a couple of times so it won’t slip, then twist up the ends of the antennae:

That is not a very clear photo of this step, so here’s a close up of what it should look like at this point:

Put a line of glue down the center of the flashlight and attach to the center fold on the wings, then glue on the eyes:

Finished!  Let it dry, and play with your new firefly!
This would be pretty with lots of different colors for the glitter, don’t you think?  This mama was only brave enough to use one color this time. :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Click Beetle Craft… and he flips!

There are about 1000 awesome bug crafts that I’ve come across online in the past few weeks, and of course M has decided to go on another craft strike.   Oh, that kid.  He said to me, “I like to do art, but only when I can do my own thing!” 

He is throwing my own philosophy of art (for small children) back in my face, isn’t he?  Apparently, he doesn’t understand that crafts are cute and if Mama wants to do one, philosophy can fly out the window.  ;)

Ah well, of the many buggy crafts I was hoping to do, only two of them were interesting enough for him to agree to.  The first is this click beetle that I’ve seen around quite a bit, but think I first found at Prekinders.

You will need:Fun foam or cardstock, glue, a spring-type clothespin, googley eyes, a pom pom, dot stickers, a marker, and scissors.

I drew two wings on the fun foam and M cut them out:


Next, he decorated them with the dot stickers.  If you use cardstock instead, you could use dot painters for this part; I’m not sure how the painters would work on the foam.

Glue the upper corners of the wings onto the clothespin, like this, kind of:

Glue on the pom pom head, then add the eyes onto the pom pom.

Finished!  And isn’t the little guy cute?  The best part is this – after the glue has dried, press down on his tail (the end of the clothespin), let go, and he will flip or jump for you, making a satisfying “click” sound at the same time. :)

Note: if we do this again, I’d use cardstock instead of the fun foam.  The wings have to overlap a bit and when we used regular white glue the top wing didn’t stay put very well.  I ended up hot gluing it on.

Have a beautiful day! :)