All the caterpillars inching around my garden have me thinking about butterflies; so last Friday I re-posted my butterfly brooch tutorial and today I'm re-posting this tutorial for monarch butterfly peg dolls. I developed the tutorial last summer for a camp where my older son was a
counselor and my younger son was participating as a camper. As you can see from the photos, the butterflies created by the children created were truly delightful.
The local monarch butterfly population has recently flown off to areas where they will lay their eggs, and they will return here (to California) in late summer. Meanwhile, we can enjoy these monarch butterfly peg dolls...
SUPPLIES
-- A blank peg doll base, any size
-- A black Sharpie-marker (I usually paint my
dolls however, for the purposes of this camp
project, we decided that a black marker would
be easier for the younger children to control.
Feel free to use marker or paint -- whichever
you prefer.)
-- Thick white acrylic paint
-- Colored pencils - black and red
-- A tiny amount of black felt
-- A millinery flower stamen
(colored black with a Sharpie)
-- A clip-art image of monarch butterfly wings
-- PVA or other white craft glue
-- Scissors
STEP 1 :: Whenever I'm doing a project based on specific animal from nature, the first thing I do (or
should
do, at any rate) is look at photographs. Going into this project, I
knew that monarch butterflies had black bodies, but it somehow escaped
my notice that their bodies had white polka dots, too. It's a good
thing I looked at some photos, right? Right.
STEP 2 :: Using a Sharpie or other black marker, draw a large oval or circle around the "face" of your peg doll.
STEP 3 :: Use
your black Sharpie/marker to fill in all the areas on your doll except
the face (note: you can use paint on your doll, but for the purposes of
this camp project, we used Sharpies).
Now
might also be a good time to paint the white polka dots on the body of
your doll. I forgot to do this and so added them later.
STEP 4 ::
Add a face to your doll. Pencils are easier to control than paint or
even markers, and so children will usually have more success drawing a
face on their doll when using pencils. You can see in the photo above
that I like using pencils to draw faces sometimes, too.
(Oops.
Still forgot to add those white polka dots. If you haven't already
painted the dots, go ahead. Grab that thick white acrylic paint and add
them to your doll. Or wait until later.)
STEP 5 ::
If you haven't yet colored your flower stamen with a black Sharpie, go
ahead and do this. Then cut a circle of felt, small enough to fit on the
back of the head of your peg doll.
Fold your millinery
flower stamen in half and place a dab of glue on the felt circle. Put
the bend of the stamen into the glue, and then glue the felt circle
& stamen to the back of your peg doll's head.
STEP 6 :: Use glue to attach clip-art monarch butterfly wings to the back of your doll. There are good clip-art wings
here and
here, or you can use Google to find many others. There are also some good choices for wings at craft shops; I used
these die-cut, cardstock butterfly wings which were stashed in my craft cupboard. Something like
this,
this or
this might work, too.
Another idea would be to draw your own wings and add color with crayon, pencil, markers or paint.
STEP 7 :: Look! I finally remembered to paint white polka dots on the body of my butterfly!