Butterfly Hand Craft Activity for Kids

By Joan
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This butterfly craft idea for young children features multiple layers of a colored paper handprint to create the wings of the butterfly. 

The wings are your child’s canvass to draw on or decorate in any way they please and is a great way to encourage that creativity. 

We have provided full instructions with pictures so that you can make your own butterfly hand craft at home. Plus there is a video demonstration so you can see the project from start to finish. 

Butterfly Hand Craft Activity for Toddlers

Prepare Your Paper Material and Craft Area

We will be using four handprints per butterfly here so you will need plenty of clear space on a table if you have multiple kids getting involved. 

Having a stack of mixed colored paper will enable you to make every butterfly project unique, and your kids can make it their own. 

You can mix and match some of the extra materials here to finish things off – like the pom-poms for the antennae and the colored markers to decorate the wings. In our papercraft butterfly project, we used buttons on the wings as well.

You are only limited by your imagination here, but we chose to keep things relatively simple. 

Butterfly Hand Craft Materials

Butterfly Hand Craft Video Demonstration

Check out the video below for a full overview of the project. It can be helpful to see it all come together before you get started with the written instructions below. 

The video is in a time-lapse format and will only take two minutes. 

 

 

How To Make A Butterfly Hand Craft

Complete Butterfly Hand Craft

This is a quick and easy butterfly craft idea that kids will enjoy. You can trace those little hands (or your own big hands) to create some butterfly wings out of colored paper that you can then have lots of fun decorating.

The bigger the wings, the more space to decorate. if you use light-colored paper then even just some patterns with markers will make this a unique butterfly decoration.

Aside form some challenging cutting, this will be a breeze for kids from toddler and preschool age.

Prep Time 5 minutes
Active Time 10 minutes
Additional Time 5 minutes
Total Time 20 minutes
Difficulty Easy

Instructions

Stage 1: Cut Out Your Handprint Butterfly Wings And Body

  1. Step 1 - Stack two pieces of colored paper on top of each other and fold in half, with a hard crease in the middle. Step 1
  2. Step 2 - Place your hand on one side of the folded paper and trace around your hand with a pencil. Step 2
  3. Step 3 - With the paper still folded, cut out your handprint with scissors. You should now have four separate handprints. Step 3
  4. Step 4 - Place two of your handprints on the table with overlapping palms, and the fingers facing away from each other. Repeat with the other pair of handprints, with the fingers angled downwards - this creates a full set of butterfly wings. Step 4
  5. Step 5 - Take another sheet of colored paper and draw a long and thin butterfly body shape. Step 5
  6. Step 6 - Cut out the shape. Step 6

Stage 2: Assemble Your Butterfly Pieces

  1. Step 7 - Start gluing your wings together. This works better by layering the wings and gluing one palm at a time. Step 7
  2. Step 8 - Glue your butterfly body to the center of the wings. Step 8
  3. Step 9 - Glue your butterfly eyes to the top of the body. Step 9
  4. Step 10 - Lastly, glue your pom-poms on the top part of the wings on both sides to act as your antennae. Step 10

Stage 3: Decorate Your Butterfly Wings

  1. Step 11 - Using crayons, pencils, or textas start to decorate your butterfly wings however you like. Step 11
  2. Step 12 - Make sure you remember to give him a smiley face Step 12🙂
  3. Step 13 - When finished decorating your butterfly hand craft is ready for decoration!

Why Make a Butterfly Paper Craft

Given the wing decorations are not at all technical, it is a great project for toddlers and preschoolers to get involved in.

They will have a great time coloring in, or drawing patterns, on the wings. Or if you have some spare craft materials leftover from other projects they can also just glue things on there. 

The smiley face on the body of the butterfly is a nice touch to make it child friendly, and ensure that your kids have a positive and respectful view of these beautiful insects. 

For More Butterfly Craft Ideas

We a number of other butterfly craft activities on the site, and have a full list of them here

Each project is complete with instructions and videos to help you make them at home. Projects include: 

Final Word

This child-friendly craft idea is a great way to teach kids about butterflies while they are engaged in creating their own version. 

Learning through the interaction offered by this craft project will have them recognizing and chasing after butterflies in the park before too long. 

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Author
Joan is our creative specialist who puts together our craft projects and video tutorials to help parents engage their children in productive activities. Joan also runs an online arts & crafts store called Papel de Arte.

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