Cereal Box Valentine's Love Bugs
‘Tis the season… to make pink and red, creepy, crawly love bugs with helping hands from your own little love bugs. This Valentine’s Day craft is fun and easy for kids to make, and fun and easy for even the littlest to help.
Cereal boxes are the perfect weight cardboard to cut, decorate and keep their shape. And every bug wants to keep its shape. You’ll find instructions below to make a lady bug, caterpillar and butterfly, but feel free to make any creepy crawlers you like, and switch the colors around any which way.
To make all of the cereal box love bugs:
You will need:*
Cereal boxes
Red and pink poster or craft paint
Paint brushes
Pink and red pipe cleaners
Large red pom poms
Small pink and red pom poms
Googly eyes
Pink and red cardstock or construction paper
Pink craft sticks (or popsicle sticks painted pink)
Scissors
Hole punch
Glue
Pencil
First, paint cereal boxes in pink and red. It’s best to use the inside of the box as the painting surface. Let the boxes fully dry.
To make the lady bug, you will need:
A 3-inch circle cut from the red painted box*
A few small circles cut from pink paper
Two pink pipe cleaners cut in half
Big red pom pom
Two googly eyes
Hole punch
Scissors
Glue
*TIP: Use a round lid, cup or jar as a template for the ladybug’s body.
Punch three holes on each side of the red circle as shown. Glue the small, pink paper circles to the top of the red circle for the ladybug’s dots.
Thread a pipe cleaner half through the holes as shown, starting from above at one side, under the lady bug body and back up through the hole on the opposite side. Bend the ends down to make legs. Repeat through the other sets of holes to have six legs total. If necessary, tape the pipe cleaners down on the underside of the ladybug.
For the head, glue googly eyes to a large, red pom pom and then glue to the end of the circle, between the two sides of the holes.
To make the butterfly, you will need:
A butterfly shape cut from the pink painted box*
Pink craft stick
Four ovals cut from red paper
One half of a red pipe cleaner
Four small, pink pom poms
Two googly eyes
Hole punch
Scissors
Glue
*TIP: Make a template for the butterfly body by folding a plain piece of paper, drawing half of the butterfly at the fold, cutting out and opening. The butterfly shown is about six inches across and 5 inches high, just smaller than the craft stick height.
Glue the red ovals and then the four pom poms on the wings.
Punch a hole at the top center. Insert the pipe cleaner half, folded in a “V.” If necessary, tape down in the back to secure. Curl the ends of the pipe cleaner.
Glue the craft stick in the center of the butterfly, holding down firmly for 30 seconds. Glue the eyes on the craft stick.
To make the caterpillar, you will need:
Three 2-inch circles cut from the red cereal box
Two 2-inch circles cut from the pink cereal box
One red pipe cleaner, cut in half
Two pink pipe cleaners, cut in half
Two small red pom poms
Two googly eyes
Hole punch
Scissors
Glue
Punch a hole on each side of each cereal box circle as shown. Glue the circles together at the ends, overlapping to form the caterpillar body.
Thread pipe cleaners through the holes as shown: Starting from above at one side, under the circle and back up through the hole on the opposite side. Bend the ends down to make legs. Repeat with every circle.
Glue a googly eye on each of two, small red pom poms. Glue the pom poms to the end of the caterpillar.
Meaghan Mountford, author of Sugarlicious: 50 Cute and Clever Treats for Every Occasion, has been creating crafty sweets for 15 years. She is especially fond of decorating cookies, marshmallows and putting sweets on sticks. See more on her blog, the decorated cookie.