This idea is such a cute one and comes from Family Fun magazine originally several years ago. I was surprised at how fast these were to assemble and in person they are really adorable. I thought I’d post the directions for those of you that may not have seen this idea floating around the internet over the years. I am always on the lookout for party favor ideas, class treats etc.. and these are so cute for Snack Mom duty for sports or clubs too!
I wanted to make these as a class treat for my 7 year old. They get to bring in snacks for birthdays but the school does not allow anything homemade (like cookies or cupcakes). Most parents bring in goody bags with pencils, stickers and candy for parties but I wanted something a little more fun. Plus the class is studying life cycles right now and they actually have caterpillars that are turning into butterflies in the class. So these little treat bags were so perfect!
You can fill the bags with anything you like- Cheerios, carrots, Goldfish etc… I originally wanted to do grapes but my little girl looked at me and said “Mom! This is my birthday treat! I do not want grapes or carrots or celery!” Lol. Hard to argue with that -so candy it is!
We were fortunate to be making things as Easter items hit the stores so I found pretty pastel Jelly Beans for just $1.00 per bag at Walmart. I needed almost 10 bags to fill 24 butterflies so that made this little project pretty affordable.
My 7 year old and 5 year old did most of the work on these and it took us about an hour to do all 24. So really this is not nearly as hard to do as it looks.
Here is what you need:
- Clothespins (found in the craft section at Walmart next to Popsicle sticks and googley eyes)
- Pipe Cleaners
- Googley eyes
- Paint or Glitter or both
- Snack size bags
- Glue
- Food item(s) to fill bags
To start we put all the clothespins out on newspaper and my little girl choose green and pink paint. She quickly painted just the top of each clothespin- you can paint the entire thing or spray painting would make this process even faster. My vision originally was shimmery blue paint and sprinkles of silver or pink glitter on top of that but my little girl wanted these colors so we went with it. You could do yellow and black for bumble bees too which would be adorable.
She decided to put polka dots in alternating colors- we used craft paint which dried in just minutes. You can use glitter glue here or paint on a stripe of glue and dump glitter on top or you can just trim down washi tape as well to decorate your clothespin and skip the paint altogether.
Once the paint dried we set out our googley eyes. I used a medium size eye which didn’t quite fit side by side on the clothespins so we put them at an angle. I think they give the butterflies more personality this way anyway. I did an assembly line for eyes- I dabbed school glue on the top of the clothespins and my daughter followed behind me popping the eyes on. I think it looks cute with different size eyes too- here is one of the butterflies with a small eye and a slightly larger eye.
I purchased a bag of pipe cleaners for $.88 at Walmart and they had two colors twisted together which is fun. The bag came with 12 pipe cleaners and I cut them in the center to create (24) pipe cleaners total.
Next we filled the bags with jelly beans. The trick here is not to fill the bags too full and make sure you have snack size not sandwich size bags. If the bags are too full they will bump against the eyes and the eyes pop off the clothespin. So I added the jelly beans and then roughly eyeballed a center point on the bag and divided the bag in half pushing my finger down the center to get half the jelly beans on one side of the bag and the other half on the other side. I pinched the center of the bag and twisted it once to create the wings. Next I took the pipe cleaner and wrapped it around in a U shape and then twisted once at the top to secure.. That should leave you with two pokey ends of the pipe cleaner sticking up. Use your finger to twist each side into a rounded antenna.
Now you are nearing the finish line. Simply take the clothespin and pinch it onto the bag and that is it! Super fun and adorable little snack for the kiddos.
I hope you have fun with this little craft– these would be darling in Easter baskets!
And if you like this project, check out:
Chick Pretzels- so cute for Easter!
We JUST brought these today for my daughter’s birthday snack at preschool. We filled ours with a fairly healthy cereal (Kashi Cinnamon Heart to Heart) and yogurt covered raisins. She colored all of her own clothespins and chose which color chenille stem to pair with each one. They turned out darling and I loved that it made her birthday snack feel special, but the kids weren’t eating cupcakes at 10am. Especially since she will have had plenty of cake by the time her birthday week is over. 🙂
Oh I love yogurt covered raisins 🙂 I prefer those to jelly beans any day. Have you seen the yogurt covered pretzel bites at Target? Amazing!