Macaroni Art

One of Baby Bear's newest vocabulary words is butterfly. Well... sort of. He calls them butts. There's a picture with a butterfly in the entryway of our house, and Baby Bear always wants me to pick him up so he can touch the "butt." When he sees a butterfly in the yard, he goes running after it, pointing and calling, "Buuuuutt! Buuuuutt!" Yes, I laugh almost every time. So, when I wanted to do a macaroni art project with Baby Bear, I thought he might enjoy decorating a butt... I mean, butterfly. ;)

To color the macaroni, I poured about 1/3 cup rubbing alcohol and a big squirt of food coloring into a Ziplock bag, added approximately 1 cup of macaroni, and shook it all up until every piece of macaroni was colored. I laid the bags flat for about an hour, flipped them over, and let them lay for about one more hour. Finally, I laid the macaroni out to dry for a couple of hours.

For the butterfly, I folded a piece of white sketchbook paper in half, cut out half a butterfly, and unfolded. I taped the butterfly to the table to help hold it in place, and then I squirted clear glue all over the butterfly. Baby Bear helped smooth the glue over the paper with a paint brush before adding the macaroni. I honestly wondered if he would have the patience to decorate the whole butterfly, but he loved it and covered the whole thing! I was also afraid he might try to eat the macaroni because he loves pasta, but he listened when I told him those were special noodles for doing art projects with, not for eating. He really had a lot of fun with this craft!

Dudes wear shades while decorating butterflies.

The pacifier really sets off the look.

I better make sure theses pieces all stay on by adding extra glue on top!