These beaded pipe cleaner butterflies are so pretty and so sparkly, and best of all, they’re really easy to make!! You can make them in whatever colours you have on hand. I went with random colours from the same colour families for my butterflies, but you can also make them from one bead colour, rather than mixed. Or in a pattern. There’s lots of options!
My girls have a pretty big stash of beads at home. We’ve made our fair share of necklaces and bracelets over the years. I guess we’re not overly creative with them!? Which is why I LOVE that just like the beaded pipe cleaner dragonflies we made last week, these beaded pipe cleaner butterflies use beads for something other than necklaces!
My 6 year old was such a great helper with this craft! She counted out all the beads she’d need and she made sure to add them to her pipe cleaners in a perfect pattern. (Of course she’d want to add them in a pattern, so it was awesome practice for her!) But it did kind of make the process take about 3 times as long as when you just add the beads randomly, but that was okay with us.
These beaded pipe cleaner butterflies are a great activity to help kids with their fine motor skills, and making patterns, if that’s what you end up doing. They use simple materials you probably already have on hand and they’re super cute for the kids to play with when they’re done!
Check out our video for how to make Beaded Pipe Cleaner Butterflies:
If you make these beaded pipe cleaner butterflies, here are a few similar crafts that would be great to make at the same time:
Beaded Pipe Cleaner Dragonflies
Beaded Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes
How to Make Beaded Pipe Cleaner Butterflies Tutorial
Here’s a list of what you’ll need. The affiliate links below will take you to products on Amazon that are similar to the supplies we used to make these butterflies:
I found half size (6 inch) pipe cleaners at the dollar store, but if you don’t have any you can easily just cut a full length (12 inch) pipe cleaner in half.
You’ll need two 12 inch pipe cleaners and one 6 inch pipe cleaner.
Add about 40 pony beads to each of the 12 inch pipe cleaners, leaving about 1 inch empty at both ends.
Make sure you leave enough of the pipe cleaner empty at the ends or it will be really hard to twist them into the butterfly wing shapes.
Take the two ends of the beaded pipe cleaner and cross them slightly to form a circle. Twist the pipe cleaner ends and wrap them around the circle to make a full beaded circle shape.
Spread the beads apart at the top and bottom of the circle (there should be 20 beads on each side), leaving about 1/2 inch of pipe cleaner exposed at the top and bottom.
Pinch the top and bottom of the circle together and twist two or three times to make an 8 shape.
Repeat the steps with the second beaded pipe cleaner so you end up with 2 eight shaped butterfly wings.
This next part where we glitter up the clothespin is completely optional but I really love how sparkly the butterfly looks with the glitter!
Add a generous amount of white glue to the top of the clothespin. You can add glue and glitter on the entire top, including the groove and the little metal piece if you like as well. I don’t really recommend adding glue and glitter to the sides of the clothespin, just because it gets messy really quickly.
Whenever you’re working with glitter, I always like to recommend working on a sheet of construction paper, or in a cardboard box. It really helps keep the glitter contained. And then when it’s dry, you can fold up the paper and just throw it away without any messes.
I sprinkled a generous amount of dollar store glitter on top of the glue. It takes a couple hours for the glue and glitter to dry, but it’s worth the wait!
After everything is dry, pinch open the end of the clothespin and slide in the butterfly wings. I didn’t glue them at all because the clothespin kept everything in place.
Reshape the pipe cleaners into even butterfly wing shapes.
Finally, take that last 6 inch pipe cleaner and fold it in half. Add one pony bead to one end, then curl it around in a spiral to make the butterfly’s antenna. Repeat on the other end of the pipe cleaner so you have two even, beaded ends to the antenna.
Slide the pipe cleaner into the end of the clothespin, and you’re done! If your butterflies are going to be played with a lot, you might want to add a dab of hot glue from the glue gun to the end of the clothespin just to keep everything together.
And your beaded pipe cleaner butterfly is complete! Isn’t it pretty!?
We made a pink, purple and blue beaded pipe cleaner butterfly.
See how cool the glitter looks when it shimmers in the sunlight!?
This is a great craft to help kids with their fine motor skills! And the kids can make something with their beads other than bracelets and necklaces!
These beaded pipe cleaner butterflies are SO PRETTY and they’re really easy to make! This is a great kids craft for spring or summer! Using pipe cleaners, pony beads and clothespins you can make beautiful butterflies in different colours! And best of all, the kids can play with them when they’re done!
For even more craft ideas that use pipe cleaners and beads, be sure to check out our beaded pipe cleaner dragonflies. These are so cute and super easy to make!
You can also check out our tutorial for making beaded pipe cleaner people with movable arms and legs!
Beaded Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes:
Source : onelittleproject.com
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