Dot Marker Butterflies - Plain Vanilla Mom

Mister C and I made Dot Marker Butterflies the other day. It was an activity inspired by the very last page of one of his favorite books, Hello Bugs. The book has been a hit since he was a baby. He loved the shininess and contrast of the pages at first and now I think he just likes to name the bugs. A word about this book… it’s proving to be just as captivating for our Little E (now two months old). I would highly recommend it for any little one. Mr. C pulls it out again and again even still.

(Affiliate links provided for your convenience. See full disclosure policy here)

Anyhow, C likes to repeat ‘bye-bye Butterfly’ at the end of the book so I thought… Hey! We should make some butterflies. They were very simple and Mr. C was in awe of completing a project like this. Up until now his arts and crafts have been pretty open ended. I haven’t really done anything that would result in a definitive end product that he would recognize like this. I just loved watching his face as he completed all the steps and watched everything come together. I could tell he was proud of his butterfly.

Supplies Needed to Make Dot Marker Butterflies

Dot Markers
Craft Sticks
Googly Eyes
Black Marker
Glue Dots or White Glue
Black Pipe Cleaner
White Paper (preferably card stock)

It was simple. I colored a craft stick with black marker and then gave him one and let him do the same. I couldn’t wait to see his interpretation of what I had done.

I had pre-cut butterfly wings and gave him dot markers to decorate them with. He loves using the dot markers right now but you could use regular markers, paint, or whatever else sounds like fun. I put glue dots on the googly eyes and let him stick them on. I did try to guide him in the right direction with the first eye, the second one he knew right where to put it. For the antenna I glued a black pipe cleaner on with the hot glue gun after he was done with everything else.

This project was just about right in terms of his 19 month old attention span. I went into it thinking maybe we’d make multiple butterflies to hang around the house but he was ‘all duh’ (aka: all done) after he completed the first one. I’m so glad he enjoyed this project and I’m looking forward to doing more with him.