Magnetic dragonfly craft

32 comments

smiling dragonfly craft w

This weekend, we had a family get together. I woke up to the rain beating against the bedroom window. I knew that the children would not be  running around the garden of the house we were visiting, as I had envisaged. The house would be full of lovely people, but people whose daily lives do not include small children, with their delightful antics. I needed a plan. A good one. After all, I want to be invited back again. Some day. So was born our dragonfly craft activity.

dragonflies on fridge

Armed with an old overnight suitcase, I crammed it full of crafting bits and pieces. In the end, we only did two projects. Out of the two, the magnetic dragonflies were the real winners. Really simple, but a useful, low mess crafting project that can be taken almost anywhere. This is a variation on the dragonflies that we made last year.

My children always love homemade crafting kits with all the materials and written instructions in one bag.  One of those moments when the older children naturally help the younger non-reading ones. This is how I put it together.

Our dragonfly craft activity

Materials we used:

wooden clothes peg
felt tips or marker pens
glitter gel pens
stiff paper
magnets
glue
scissors
dragonfly wing template

Suggested how-to

  1. Decorate the wooden pegs using the felt tips
  2. Trace the wing shape onto the stiff paper and cut out
  3. Use the felt tips and glitter gel pens to decorate the wings
  4. Glue the wings on just above where the peg splits into two
  5. Glue the magnet on the opposite side.
  6. Leave to dry

magnet on dragonfly peg

Last year’s wool wings were pulled off by our garden sparrows and are probably insulating our roof, where they love to nest. Our new dragonflies are on the fridge and every time I shut the fridge door, the wings flutter, like a disturbed cluster of dragonflies.

painting the wooden peg dragonfly craftLast year’s dragonfly before the wool was glued on.

I love crafts and activities that all three of my children want to do. Challenging when they have different capabilities at 3, 6 and 8 years old. A crafting project that appeals to both girls and boys. I feel motivated to put a few more similar kits together, ready for taking away on holiday or just for our rainy day box. I also love craft projects that decorate our home and make me smile. The smiling dragonfly (see top of this post) brightens up my day, every time I go to the fridge. Some things you just can’t plan!

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32 comments

  3. This is a wonderful idea and as I just love dragonflies, I might have to make one myself. 🙂
    Have a lovely weekend,
    Anne xx

  5. Love that your crafts are always cheerful. I recently bought a package of old-style clothespins. I would like to make some clothespin dollies for my granddaughter. Thanks for the link–those feather sculptures were amazing, and some were bordering on scary! I can’t imagine the amount of time it must have taken to make something so intricate. Thanks again for sharing 🙂

    1. I love dressing up clothespins. I remember making an Elizabethan lady once, when I was younger. Hmm. That’s an idea. Glad you like the feather sculptures. Fascinating work.

    1. Not sure why I haven’t brought along a crafting project before. Works a treat. At the end of the day, everyone goes away happy. 🙂

    1. 😀 The urge to craft. Shared by so many of us! I hope you have fun making them and enjoy your fluttering dragonflies.

  11. I just love your dragon fly craft and would be so very pleased if you’d drop by and share on Craft Schooling Sunday! (still open) A few of your fellow country women, red-ted art and nurture store are regulars at the party, so I’m sure you’ll feel right at home!

    1. I’m so glad you like our dragonflies, sara. The children had so much fun making them and still play with them. A crafting project that keeps on giving!

  12. thanks so very much for sharing on Craft Schooling Sunday! I’m so happy to say that I actually have some of these clothes pins around so we could even do this!

  13. […] These neat little dragonflies would look great all over the fridge. I would imagine it wouldn’t take much to turn them into butterflies either. More Interesting Ideas Archives […]

    1. Hi Kate. I always had a good collection of empty match boxes when I was little. They can be made into so many things. My children seem to use them for their collections of minute objects. 🙂

  16. Hi Cheryl,

    I found this post searching Heaven (aka The Crafty Crow) for Summer/Summer Solstice (yes, while you are no doubt toasting toes by the fireside or scraping snow out of driveways, here in the Southern Hemisphere, we are battling humidity, mozzies and a very wet summer!) projects, and am enchanted with your blog, you lovely home (lucky you!!) and your neat ideas…

    This is so simple an idea! I love things that are easy, need little direction from me, and appeal across a wide age/gender range. I was thinking we might use food dye to paint ours, as I love the effect of that in natural wood, and maybe use velem (not sure how to spell that!) from the scrap/card making days for the dragonfly wings.

    Dragon flies are my favourite mini-beasts, so I am going to make a host of them! I think they would look lovely dangling from our indoor branches, or on the seasonal table too.

    I am so taken by the ‘kits’ idea. Many moons ago, I would make up, in home-made drawstring bags or little decorated boxes, themed kits for the younger children in our social circle as Yule or Christmas gifts…one year might be a baking theme, so cookie cutters, piping bags, rolling pins etc would be included, along with handwritten recipes easy for children. Or it might have been gardening, so the little gloves, hand tools, hand made packets of home harvested seeds with instructions would go in, and so on…they were always a lot of fun to put together, and very well received!

    And you can alter the contents slightly for each recipient, to make it more personal – Harry might like dinosaur cookie cutters and a dinosaur patterned bag, but Sam might prefer trains and planes…choose favourite colours, animals or interests while keeping to the theme…no-one feels left out (they all have the same) but they are all personally suited to the recipient.

    Well I had completely forgotten about that (I am a mother of ‘2’ sets of children, 3 grown up children and 2 young ones!) and your post just reminded me! I am going off to start a host of ‘Rainy Day’ kits, ‘gift’ kits, ‘travel’ kits, ‘sick day’ kits…and more!! I bet you could adapt that idea for the older big kids too, with a little thinking.

    Thanks for the inspiration, and hope you are having happy holidays,

    peace & love,
    Shanti from Downunder

    1. A few themed materials put together make such a good starting place for children….. in fact anyone! Gets them thinking and doing. My very favourite kits are those that hint of what to do rather than spelling it out. It doesn’t matter what I plan, the receiver of the kit will always surprise me. I love all your ideas and I bet your children do too! Thanks for visiting and leaving such a lovely comment!

  17. I just found this awesome dragonfly craft and would love to use it at my Girl Scout camping trip coming up soon. I don’t see the template for the wings or am I missing the link to get them?

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