Woven Flowers and Butterflies

Sorry I haven't posted a lot lately...been trying to keep up with the kids!

This is a project I recently completed with Grade 1. 

It is a combination of a circle weaving project I first saw on "oodles of Art Projects" here.......

and a butterfly project from "The Artful Parent".

This is my version so let's get started.

We used small recycled paper plates which were cut with 9 notches. Just cut from the rim to where the flat plate begins.  You need an ODD number in order to weave.

Pierce a hole in the center with a knitting needle.

Cut 9 lengthes of yarn....mine were about 6 inches and put one end thru the hole..other thru the notch and tie the 2 ends into a knot on the other side.
Do this for all 9 notches.

Take some yarn in the color you want to weave with. Tie on at the back and then feed thru the hole in the center.

For the kids I used a large plastic needle to help with their weaving.  I tied the other end of the yarn to the needle to stop it from slipping out.

Start weaving around the center going under one of the pieces of yarn tied in the notch and then over the next one.  When it's time to change yarn just tie right onto the end of the last one.

One thing you have to be careful with is to get the kids to keep the weaving quite loose otherwise it starts to pop up in the center instead of fanning out to the edges of the plate.

Here is an example of the yarn bunching up in the center.

Each child was asked to use 3 colors.

When the kids were finished weaving (this took a while) tie the last end of the yarn off by pulling it to the back thru a notch and then knotting it onto one of the other yarn pieces.



The kids then painted the rest of the plate.  We used liquid tempera paint.  Tempera disks did not work so well as there was a coating on the plate that resisted the paint a bit.  Set aside to dry.

I traced a large circle for each child, about 4 inches larger in diameter than the paper plate.

They painted these in various colors and patterns using disk tempera.

Set aside to dry.

Glue the woven plate to the center of the painted circle for your flower.  You could cut petals into the painted circle if you want.

For the butterfly I traced a butterfly shape to heavy paper.

The kids were asked to draw some designs onto the butterfly with white pastel.  Lines, circles, stripes.....



They then painted on top of these designs with disk tempera.

The kids loved this part as their designs "magically" appeared.

After they painted their butterfly we put them into the rack to dry and I gave each of them a coffee filter to paint.

I decided to add the coffee filter to the design to help hold the clothespin in place at the end.

Set aside to dry.

While everything was drying I painted some old fashioned clothespins with black acrylic paint.

I had the kids cut out the butterfly....they picked out a pipe cleaner for the antennae....we put tacky glue on the back in the center and in the front....slide the clothespin in place and then scrunch in the coffee filter.

Let the glue dry and you're done.

Beautiful flowers and butterflies.