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Butterfly Craft Idea – Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

It’s been a couple of weeks, and our nasty little caterpillars have turned into beautiful butterflies!  The kids had so much fun watching them grow, and I even learned some new things about them.  Did you know the caterpillar actually sheds the outside of it’s body to make the chrysalis?  SICK!  Go watch a YouTube video… you will be amazed and disgusted all at the same time!  We released the butterflies a couple days ago.  So neat to watch them fly away free.  I came up with a butterfly craft idea for us to commemorate the occasion, but first, take a look at these fun shots!

Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

If you want to try it out, the butterfly gardens are still on sale on Amazon right now.

Butterfly Garden

To go along with our butterfly theme, we made butterfly suncatchers out of Shrinky Dinks.

Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers
Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

I just used a pack of clear shrink film that I picked up in the kid’s section of the craft store.  It’s pretty cool stuff!  Apparently they make an inkjet printable kind now too.  I might just need to try that out!  I traced a few three-inch wide butterflies onto the shrink film and let the kids color them with permanent markers.  If you don’t trust your children with permanent markers, you can also sand the shrink film on one side and color with colored pencils like we did here.

Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

After they were done coloring, I cut them out and punched holes in them in different places.  Seven was a lot for one kid to color.  I’d suggest only doing four or five.

Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

I also cut strips of the film and punched holes in it for hanging.

Follow the instructions for shrinking and then hang them with fishing line.  They looked so pretty in the sunny window!

Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

Eventually I moved them outside to a bare tree.  Gave it some nice color.

Butterfly Craft Idea - Shrinky Dink Suncatchers

Hope you like this butterfly craft idea!  Have a great weekend!  If you like this craft, you might like to see my other tween and teen craft ideas!

Also check out the caterpillar into butterfly craft that we made!

Caterpillar into Butterfly Craft for Kids!

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Natalie

Saturday 14th of May 2016

Great idea! Do you have a butterfly pattern I can use? I'm hopeless at drawing.

Jessica @ Cutesy Crafts

Tuesday 17th of May 2016

No, I didn't make a pattern for this one, sorry. You could hold a piece of paper up to your computer screen and lightly trace it. A google search of "butterfly template" might bring up some results for you as well.

Tori

Saturday 16th of May 2015

If you don't want your child to use permanent markers you can take a piece of sandpaper and give the plastic film a once over. Then you can use colored pencils on them. Less mess. I've also used acrylic paint diluted with water and acrylic varnish to make jewelry with this project.

Jessica @ Cutesy Crafts

Tuesday 19th of May 2015

Great idea! I'll definitely do that next time!

babs

Saturday 6th of September 2014

Are you actually using the plastic film for shrinking the butterflies? Or leaving them at 3 inches? If you are shrinking them, how small do they get?

Jessica @ Cutesy Crafts

Saturday 6th of September 2014

Yes, we shrunk them. It's been a while, but I want to say they ended up being 1-2 inches wide after the shrinking.

Amy B

Sunday 22nd of June 2014

you can also use restaurant leftover containers. As long as the number 6 is in the recycle arrows it works awesome. I love taking home leftovers. The kids now look for the 6 instead of asking when they get to eat the food. LOL!

Jessica @ Cutesy Crafts

Thursday 26th of June 2014

What??? I didn't know that! I'm totally going to be looking for those from now on. Thanks for the tip!

Sparkling

Monday 15th of April 2013

You are killing me! We did shrinky dinks a couple of times when I was a kid and I thought they were the best thing ever. My mother, on the other hand, did not, so it was forever that thing that I so most wanted to do that she forbade. And as an adult, I never think about doing it! I remember someone once using that shrink film to create the best Christmas ornaments and we each got one one Christmas. My mother still puts them on our tree. But she wouldn't let us make them!!!!!

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