Springtime Butterflies and Color Mixing

This past week we made butterflies to decorate the dining room for spring. We started with some plain white paper towels and water with food coloring in them.  Fold the paper towels in half 4 times (16 sections) and then dip in the colored water. Make sure you don't dip it too long because it absorbs the water really fast and becomes difficult to unfold.  Then lay them flat to dry (we used newspapers).

 Once they are dry, take pipe cleaners and wrap on around the center of each paper towel to form a body and antennae.  Bria was able to wrap them to make bodies, but I ended up making most of them. The girls wanted most of theirs to have curly antennae.  Then use string to have wherever you want. We hung them from the light fixture initially as well as tacking them to the walls (we made a lot).  The girls even wanted them on their season hand print trees. However, one of the cats decided they tasted good, attacked the ones hanging on the lamp, and broke one of the glass shades at 3 am.  So they are no longer on the light fixture.  Nadia also had fun playing with a couple on ribbons. For better pictures here is the site I got the idea from: http://www.skiptomylou.org/2011/06/17/paper-towel-butterflies-craft-camp/

We also had some fun with color this week.  I have seen variations of these bags in a lot of places. Basically, I took ziploc bags and put 2 colors of  finger paint in each of them. I then sealed them and tapped them to the front door.  I let the girls mix the colors and then just draw in the bag.  This kept them busy at least an hour, and they kept going back to them!

This was a great way to experiment with colors while staying clean!