Quilling Craft Project by Renae

My name is Renae. I am a military member turned military wife turned working mom turned stay-at-home mom. I have done it all it seems! I have three beautiful children, a boy and two girls. I blog over at More Than Mommy, where I talk about life, crafts, recipes, giveaways and more! You can also check me out on Facebook HERE. If you enjoy this craft, you should check some of my others in my Recipe/Craft section HERE.

My little girl, Shari, is always asking me to do a craft with her. It can be so much fun watching her imagination develop and watch new ideas surface when I start her off with a simple idea. We were looking at Pinterest the other day (what else!) and she saw some projects that used quilling. If you aren’t familiar, quilling involves very tight spirals and coils that are then shaped into some really beautiful art. In any case, it is a bit much for a 5 year old to take on!

In lieu of that, I thought we could use construction paper, loosely following the idea of quilling. Shari, ever the girly girl decided that we should make a butterfly. Once we had decided on that, it was fairly easy to make.

First, I cut the paper into strips. Of course the main body of the butterfly had to be purple. Nothing else will do for a princess!  

Once the paper is cut into strips, I taped them in circles (glue will also do). From there, I shaped the body of the butterfly by flattening one of the circles, and putting two smaller circles on top and two smaller ones on the bottom. 

Once the body of the butterfly is put together, you take the rest of the strips of paper and cut them in half, lengthwise. This creates dimension between the body of the butterfly and the colors on the wings. Now, take a strip of paper and curl it around a pencil, until you have the entire thing wrapped up. 

Put glue around the edge of the coil and drop it in the wing of the butterfly. 

Repeat this until you have as many colors as you want in there. We did ours fairly loosely, but it could be done much more compactly, with more paper as well. 

Voila! You have a put together a fun butterfly ‘sculpture.’ You can easily make a flower, or lady bug, or even a teddy bear. 

This is definitely the kind of project that little ones will need help with, but that can make it more fun too! My little girl especially liked curling the paper, and placing them.