Tissue Paper Beaded PipeButterfly

How do you turn a messy pile of tissue paper scraps into a beautiful butterfly?


Simply add a couple of pipe cleaners, and some watered down glue (two parts school glue to one part water, works pretty well).


Cut the tissue paper into one, or two inch squares. The size doesn't matter so much, the bigger the square, the bigger the bead, but it's good to have them all basically the same size.


Twist the pipe cleaners together, near the top, to make the antennae. The butterfly design comes from David C. Cook's Children's Church, Red Edition, Craft Book, but they suggest using pony beads. We didn't have pony beads, so we proceeded to make our own, tissue paper beads by...


...folding the tissue paper squares into rectangles...


...immersing them in the watered down glue...


...then wrapping them around the pipe cleaner, and squishing them into bead shapes. This is an easy enough process for youngish children, but messy. You definitely want to cover your workspace.


It takes about 40 beads to cover the pipe cleaners.



To finish forming the butterfly, scoot the beads carefully apart, about 10 down from the top, and twist the two pipe cleaners together at the gap, into a loop, to make a sort of bow, for the top of the wings.


Then, loop the bottom ends up, to twist around the middle, making loops for the bottom of the wings.


Let the beads dry completely - it took slightly more than a day for ours to dry, and thread a piece of yarn through the wings, to hang, or use as a necklace.


It's great to be a homeschooler.