Recycled Craft: Egg Carton Butterfly

Recycled crafting is a ton of fun to do with your children. Not only are you spending creative time with them, but you're also teaching them about reusing household items for other purposes. Below is a fun tutorial for making a butterfly using a piece of egg carton and other various art supplies.

Materials

Egg Carton
Scissors
Card Stock
Acrylic Paint
Paint Brushes
Glue Gun
Glue Sticks (for the glue gun)
Pencil
Craft Pipe Cleaners
Googly Eyes

Additional Materials

Yarn
Glitter
Glue Stick
Craft Buttons

Directions

Step One - Carefully cut the egg carton into sections, leaving two or three of the egg sections attached to each other. This section will be the body of the butterfly. You can paint the egg section any color you'd like. Using the acrylic paint and paint brushes, paint the rounded side (the bottom) of the egg section. Let the first coat of paint dry and apply a second coat if necessary. Set aside and allow it to completely dry.

Step Two - Using the glue gun, slowly trace the flat side of the egg carton with glue and place it in the center of the card stock. The piece of card stock should be lying horizontally. Make sure the egg carton is secure on the paper before continuing to the next step.

Step Three - With your pencil, draw a wing on each side of the egg carton. When you are happy with the wings you sketched, trace over the pencil outline with markers or acrylic paint. You can decorate your wings however you desire! Get creative and use glitter, craft buttons for spots and pieces of yarn for stripes in the wings.

Step Four - Depending on how much space you have between the head of the butterfly and the top of the paper, you may have to cut one craft pipe cleaner in half opposed to using two (one for each antenna). Bend each craft pipe cleaner into a swirly shape and apply them using the glue gun.

Step Five - Finally, you will attach the googly eyes onto the top of the egg carton.