Origami Butterfly Mobile

 This past summer we raised monarch butterflies again, like we do almost every year.  It's always fun watching the caterpillars grow, and then transform into their chrysalis. Then we patiently wait for the lovely butterflies to emerge so we can release them. 

Often times i will look up butterfly crafts, coloring page and printables to do while we observe the caterpillars metamorphosis. i looked up directions for origami butterflies and found a couple i liked. Then i found these cool butterfly printed origami projects.  There are easy to follow directions on the page. 

 My boy figured them out quickly, and was able to fold them without help. My girl (6) did need a little help lining up the points and creasing the paper.

 

 The site has templates pre-printed for Monarchs, Swallowtails, Painted lady and  Dianna Fritillary.  The templates didn't all come up the same size, so i had to save a couple of them to my computer then adjust the size, so they were life sized.  Then i made them into a simple mobile.

 i love the way our mobile came out! The backs of the butterflies are just white. So, i printed two of each butterfly, folded them and then paired them up so that there is a printed butterfly on each side of the string. i just used a bit of hot glue to stick them together and attach them to the string/stick.  The butterflies spin and dance!

This was really a fun afternoon project, and the fold that we learned with these printed templates could easily be used with regular paper, or origami paper to make simple solid colored butterflies.