Butterfly Garden Collage Craft

After dying pasta recently, I decided that the bow ties (farfalle) would make cute butterflies so I came up with this spring collage craft for Mia to do. It was a perfect activity for this rainy spring day.

{Butterfly Garden Collage by Mia, Age 4}

Materials:

• construction paper
• tacky glue
• cupcake liners
• scissors
• bow tie pasta
• green pipe cleaners
• markers (optional)
• green construction paper (optional)
• food coloring for dying pasta (optional)
• corkscrew pasta (optional)
  
• beads, buttons, foam, yarn, etc. (optional)
• clear tape (optional)

Directions:

1. Glue about 3-5 cupcake liners to a piece of construction paper to make flowers. We put glue just on the inner circular section so that the outside part stood out to make 3-D flowers.
2. Decorate the flowers. Mia used markers for the flower's centers, but you could use buttons, beads, craft foam, paper circles, or yarn. 
3. Make flower stems. Trim green pipe cleaners to fit the paper and glue down for the flower stems. You may need to press down and hold for 10-20 seconds to help the pipe cleaners stick. We also added a small amount of clear tape to help hold them. You could also use drinking straws or paper for the stems or just draw them with markers.
4. Add some "butterflies" to your garden by gluing bow tie pasta to and around the flowers. You might also choose to add corkscrew pasta "caterpillars." Again, it helps if you press down gently and hold for about 10-20 seconds to make sure the pasta is securely attached to the paper. Note: If you want dyed pasta shapes, follow the same directions for making dyed pasta necklaces.
5. If desired, add grass or dirt to the bottom of the paper. Mia chose to draw these with markers but you could also use yarn for grass or cut some fringe on green construction paper and glue it to your paper.
6. Once the glue is dry, you can display your butterfly garden collage.