Twirling Paper Ladybugs

This is one of the cutest paper crafts I have found so far. I couldn't resist making them for my kids' room. They took the better part of the afternoon and about two hours into the evening after the kids went to bed. While each of the steps themselves were not difficult, there were just a LOT of steps to go through. Well worth it, I think.

I found the idea at Make and Takes about two years ago and finally decided to do it. I had to adapt the tutorial to meet with my circumstances. The Make and Takes tutorial calls for the black markings on the ladybugs to be painted on. I, however, used construction paper cutouts since my workspace currently consists of my bed and desk. The last time I attempted painting in my room, it didn't turn out as well as I would have liked and took quite a lot of patience to fix: see here and here. (Plus, I'm sure my mother appreciates my consideration for her basement carpet..) 

For this project, I used 4 pieces of black construction paper and about half each of 9 colored pieces of construction paper. I bought that paper about 13 years ago for scrapbooking purposes and I don't think I've gone through half of it yet!

I used a glass jar candle as my stencil, and I'm glad I did. In retrospect, the much bigger ladybugs I had in mind would have been a mountain of a task to complete. I used one of each color construction paper I had available to me (excepting the black which I use later on in the project). I cut out 18 circles to complete 9 different ladybugs.

I bought this 1" circle punch for this project nearly two years ago. I'm glad I found the punch before I found my spouncers and paint, or this craft would have turned out to be much longer and difficult. As it was, in order to put just 4 dots on each of the four sides of each ladybug, I had to punch out 144 circles! Amazing how quickly it adds up.

To make the head/face of the ladybugs, I stenciled 9 more circles in black.

Then, using the edge of one of the colored circles, I measured out a corner of the circle to the size I wanted the face to be and stenciled that in. Each black circle had room for the four faces I needed for each ladybug.

Pre-cut

Post-cut

(Don't worry about wasted paper, I used the inner diamond to punch out the last few 1" dots I needed.)

Gluing the faces on.

Each circle had to have a slit cut about half-way through each circle. One on the bottom and one on the top, so that they could be fit together for gluing later.

Gluing the wiggly eyes on.

Hot gluing the two circles together successfully was challenging enough with two hands, so I wasn't able to take pictures of that process. I've been burned by a hot glue gun before and I wasn't interested in repeating that experience.

While the kids were away at a summer recreation program, I hung these little darlings in their room.

I think I might even make these sweet little clouds to go with them....

My hope is that they have grown out of the paper-eating stage that destroyed nearly all of these fun  pom-poms I made for them three years ago. I was able to rescue one of the tiered pom-pom creations and it's been hanging in my room ever since. So, I'll cross my fingers and hope that they will leave the ladybugs alone! :)

My desire for whimsy has been satisfied once again!

Until next time! Happy Blogging!