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More Butterflies--Origami

Sharing Saturday is still open!! Please stop by to share your child-oriented crafts and activities or to be inspired by the amazing ideas already shared!

Since my post for Friday was on butterflies I thought I would show you some more butterflies I have made (and have given to Hazel to decorate though she seems to just like to play with them).  (The post on Friday included some children's books about butterflies.)

These are all made with a technique called origami. I love origami. I used it as a math teacher to teach different skills and have just always thought the Japanese art of paper folding was really neat. Some is easier than others and I will get into this more later. I am going to start by giving you a bit of the history of paper and origami. My sources for this history will be two books: The Simple Art of Japanese Papercrafts by Mari Ono and Origami Flowers by Soonboke Smith.
Asian and Polynesian peoples are known to have created ceremonial and utilitarian handicrafts by folding and wearing ti leaves, palm fronds, and pounded mulberry bark long before paper was ever invented. This was the origins of origami. The word origami is the Japanese word for paper folding. (Source: Origami Flowers)

Papermaking was invented in China at the beginning of the second century and was brought to Japan in the sixth century CE. The original paper brought to Japan was weak and the people demanded better paper. The Japanese discovered that a plant indigenous to Japan, gampi, was an ideal raw material for paper and they used a new method to produce it. This created washi paper. In the eighth century a new method was developed using hemp and kozo. This method is called the nagashizuki method. It allowed for unusally thin, strong, resistant paper to be made. With these developments the use of paper became more than just for official documents and transcription of religious texts because paper was more available.
Source

The origin of origami is not completely known. Parts of it began to appear in different areas of Japan. When paper became more available, it became common for people to make cranes and boats and use them as decorations. The first origami book, The Secret of One Thousand Origami Cranes by Hiden Senbazuru Orikata was published in 1797.

In 1873 at the Vienna World Exposition the world was amazed to see all the things made out of paper by the Japanese. Until 1853 Japan was very isolated from the world. (Source: The Simple Art of Japanese Crafts)

I have to admit my nephew loves origami. While I was at the Cape last time he was visiting and we did quite a bit of origami together. I left my book there so he and my mother could continue to make some. I meant to take some pictures of the things we made, but alas I did not and left them there.
Some of my sources for my butterflies!

Now onto our butterflies. While at the Mass Audubon Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary Gift Shop, I found an origami butterfly kit (see picture on top of collage above). This was the start of my idea. I had several butterfly crafts to try and thought it would be neat to do some out of origami as well. Unfortunately I had some difficulties with the instructions. After several tries, I decided to practice with printer paper so I would not keep wasting my good origami paper (and the paper in the kit was double-sided to make more colorful butterflies).
After figuring this one out with the printer paper, I have not gone back and tried it with the origami paper. However, I loved the idea of being able to do make some with Hazel's drawings and paintings. This has not happened yet, but it will.
This purple butterfly was made from the instructions in the book, Making Origami Animals by Michael G. LaFosse (bottom left in collage above).
This pink butterfly includes a pipecleaner body and antennae. It was made using the instructions in the Holiday Origami book by Jill Smolinski (bottom right in collage above). It had the butterflies as an introduction to spring.
This dual color butterfly was among the easiest I made. The instructions came from Hansbirkeland.
The cabbage butterfly was among the next easiest for instructions found on line. These instructions came from the Origami Club.
The instructions for this beautiful butterfly are also on-line at Fabric Origami.
Although this one looks simple, it has more steps than most of the ones I made. With fifteen steps, it is definitely not simple. I found this one at Origami-fun.

My final butterfly had twenty-one steps! It is a butterfly by Akira Yoshizawa. There are several videos on-line for the Yoshizawa butterfly. I found the instructions at this blog.

If you would like even more of a challenge than twenty-one steps, you can check out these books. They had 50-100 steps for the butterflies, but they were complete with their six legs and all. I did not adventure that much to try them. Sorry!

I would also like to share with you this wonderful book, Butterflies for Kiri by Cathryn Falwell. It is a wonderful story of how a girl who loves to draw and paint receives a gift of an origami kit on which her aunt had made an origami butterfly in the wrapping. Kiri tries to make the butterfly and has difficulty, but with practice eventually is able to make it. It has instructions to make an origami butterfly in it. I know I followed them, but am not sure which one it is anymore. I may have misrepresented one of the ones above (if I did I'm guessing the purple one) and its instructions came from here.

My Christian Values



A little different type of post. One that is very personal and controversial. I have gone back and forth about whether I wanted to write/post it, but I have decided for me to stay true to my own beliefs I really need to. Don't worry I'll be back to my child-oriented crafts and activities tomorrow!

Sharing Saturday #31


Wow, last week was another amazing week full of creativity!! If you have not checked them all out, please visit them and leave some comments!! I am very inspired. Once again I had trouble choosing my favorites. Here is what I decided to do this week!


We had several that used LEGOs or DUPLOs so I thought I would feature them. I know we are just getting into LEGOs here and love different activities with them.
1) From A Happy Song: Animal Mixed Up Puzzles
2) From Mummy...Mummy...Mum!: 10 Fun Things to Do with DUPLO (pictured is painting with DUPLO)
3) From ourfeminist{play}school: DIY iPad Activities
4) From Little Wonders' Days: LEGO Rescue!
5) From Making Boys Men: Marble Maze (+a Bible Lesson)

And of course we need:

1) From Happy Whimsical Hearts: Melted Bead Bowl
2) From Ginx Craft: Plaiting and Braiding
3) From Repeat Crafter Me: This Little Piggy Sock
4) From Life on the Gravelly Road: Homemade Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Thank you to everyone who shared last week!! I hope you will join us and share again!! If you are featured here, please feel free to grab a featured button to display proudly on your blog.
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From Your Host:
  Butterfly Crafts and Books


  Now for This Week's Party  
A Few Simple Guidelines:
1)  Please follow both hosts via GFC (or one of the other ways that work for you).  

Hosts are Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart. A reminder: Mia is taking a blogging break. Hopefully she will be back soon to host again!!
2)  Link any kid-friendly, child-centered post. Please no etsy shops or giveaways, etc.  Remember to link to your actual post.
3) Post the button on your sidebar or somewhere on your blog to help spread the word.

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4. Optional: Like us on Facebook and Google+
Disclaimer: By sharing here, you are giving Crafty Moms Share and Mama Mia's Heart2Heart permission to use your photos for features and to pin your craft at Pinterest
All right everyone...This is a PARTY!! Have Fun!!

Butterflies


Butterflies are another sign of summer to me. Hazel and I have been seeing quite a few and learning about them as well. Between our adventures at Mass Audubon (in and out of scheduled programs) and just in our yard, we have been seeing them everywhere! This summer Hazel has learned to recognize a monarch butterfly and has learned to say monarch. Oh, and I saw the Butterfly Lifecycle pieces at Michaels as well as the frog one we looked at with our program! We have also found a few books to help us learn about them.
The first is The Butterfly by Anna Milbourne and Cathy Shimmen. We bought this one at the zoo. It goes through the life of a butterfly from caterpillar to butterfly's eggs hatching. The pictures are nice and colorful.

The second is What's the Difference Between a Butterfly and a Moth? by Robin Koontz. I saw this book on Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational awhile ago and looked for it at the library. I have always wondered how you could tell the difference.

The third is A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston and Sylvia Long. This book goes into great detail about what characteristics a butterfly must have for its life cycle as well well labeled illustrations of the different species at all stages.

The fourth is my favorite. It is See How They Grow Butterfly photographed by Kim Taylor. This book starts with a photograph of an egg and its mother and takes you through every stage from hatching to pictures with exactly how many weeks it is old. The pictures are amazing!! I definitely recommend this one if you want to learn/teach more about the life cycle.

Today we did some butterfly crafts. First we borrowed an idea from One Artsy Mama and made beaded butterflies by putting beads on pipe cleaners. (I should add that she posted this the other day which is why I say she inspired it. Looking at my pins I see I had a similar one pinned and the original source is indietutes.) Now I did this from memory this morning and thought about using clothespins, but we didn't. We did it with pipe cleaners and beads. This probably made it easier, but not as great for use.

Next we took the idea from  Creative Play For Your Toddler: Steiner Waldorf Expertise and Toy Projects for 2-4s by Christopher Clouder and Janni Nicol. We used three squares of tissue paper and a pipe cleaner. We added on a wooden bead for the head. The book suggested making a mobile. We have not done that yet, but Hazel is enjoying playing with them.

Some of the other crafts I have done from this book can be found here and here.













We also did a similar one using tulle and a pipe cleaner.
The last thing I would like to share is a gift Hazel picked out for me awhile ago at Drumlin Farm Gift Shop.  (My birthday was this week, so I got to open them this week.)



We will be doing more butterfly crafts as well as dragonflies! Stay tuned!

This is where I share...


Book Clubs


Seeing how today is August 1st, I just wanted to remind you that the Virtual Book Club for Kids' August author is Kevin Henkes (one of our favorites!!). The blog hop/link party will open on August 20th!! Here are a few of his books that we own or have out of the library currently!
My sister sent Hazel Sheila Rae, The Brave for Easter, and Hazel recognized it from the back even though we had only taken out a hard cover (and her copy is paperback) from the library once. Yes, we love his books that much. The two without titles on them, no longer have their paper covers, they are The Little White Rabbit and My Garden. We had to buy The Little White Rabbit for Hazel because she wanted it read to her every night and she threw a tantrum when we talked about returning it to the library. It was our first introduction to Kevin Henkes. I hope you will join us for the blog hop/link party on the 20th!

Also July's link party is still open so if you have any activities/posts on Audrey and Don Wood books, please share them here.

Also we have finished our local library's summer reading program or at least have read enough to get the final prizes and certificate--we can still read more and vote for which animal to buy for Heifer.