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Turn something shapeless and colorless into a Gorgeous DIY Clay Butterfly Craft for Kids! Great weekend project for older kids, pre-teens & teens!

Easy crafts are great, especially for building confidence in craft beginners. They generally don’t need too many supplies, can be done in a short while and have simple steps.

But sometimes, that’s not enough. You want to feel a sense of achievement, the way only a challenging project can make you feel. And for days like that, we’ve got the perfect craft for you!

Here is a beautiful DIY clay butterfly craft that’s ideal for older kids and even adults. It’s still easy, but has multiple steps and takes a bit of time – a wonderfully therapeutic experience if you ask me!

Gorgeous DIY Clay Butterfly Craft for Kids

Supplies required:

• Air-drying clay or foam clay in different colors
• Clay tools
• Wire
• Sharpies

How to make the DIY Clay Butterfly Craft:

1. To ensure that our DIY clay butterfly is bright and colorful, we need an assortment of air-drying clay in different colors like green, red, black, yellow, blue, and purple. Let’s start with the blue clay to make the wings of the butterfly. Each wing has four parts, and we begin the first part with a ball of blue clay. Roll it into a smooth round shape.

2. Roll the ball into a cylinder and then make one end pointed, as shown in the image below.

3. Flatten the roll into a teardrop shape by pressing it gently.

4. Take a small piece of red clay and roll it into a ball. Flatten it into a small disc.

5. Stick the red disc on the wide end of the blue teardrop. Take a tiny piece of black clay and make a triangle out of it. 

6. Attach the black triangle on top of the blue clay shape, right under the red disc. The first part of the DIY clay butterfly wing is complete.

7. For the second part of the wing, create another blue teardrop shape similar to the first one, but a little smaller. Make a smaller teardrop out of green clay and attach it on top of the blue one, aligning the narrow ends. 

8. Take a piece of yellow clay and pinch out three tiny bits. Shape each into a little yellow dot and arrange it along the wide edge of the blue teardrop shape, above the green one.

9. From the remaining yellow clay, take out two pieces and roll them into long, thin strips. Attach them on top of the green teardrop shape. Pinch out tiny pieces of red clay and shape them into little dots. Stick them in the middle of the yellow dots. Your second DIY clay butterfly wing is done!

10. Time to make the third butterfly wing! This time we create the base teardrop shape out of green clay, of the same size as the blue teardrop in the second part of the wing. Now take the purple clay and create a smaller purple teardrop and attach it on the green one, aligning the narrow ends.

11. As shown in step 8, create three yellow dots and attach them on the broad end of the green teardrop. Create little red dots as shown in step 9, and stick them on the yellow dots. The third wing of the DIY clay butterfly is done.

12. Moving on to the last wing, we create a teardrop shape similar to the green one, of the same size, this time in purple clay. Take a piece of yellow clay and shape it into a diamond. Attach it on the broad end of the purple teardrop.

13. Roll out a piece of red clay and flatten it into a disc. Stick it on the yellow diamond.

14. Now all four parts of your DIY clay butterfly wing are done! Create another set of these – you’ll need it!

15. Arrange the parts of the wing in the order you made them, one below the other, so that the narrow ends come together towards the center. 

16. Put the wing aside for now, we’re moving on to the body of the DIY clay butterfly. Take a piece of yellow clay and roll it into a thick cylinder. Pinch out a small piece of red clay and roll it into a little ball. The yellow cylinder is the body and the red ball is the head.

17. Attach the red head at one end of the yellow cylinder. 

18. Remember the wing we assembled in Step 15? It’s time to attach it to one end of the yellow cylinder!

19. Remember you created another set of the same wing parts? Join them together to create the second wing and attach it to the opposite end of the yellow cylinder. Our DIY clay butterfly is looking good!

20. Pinch out two tiny pieces of green clay and roll them into long thin strips. These are the butterfly’s antennae.

21. Attach the clay antennae on the top of the butterfly’s head. 

22. Make eyes and mouth out of yellow and black clay respectively. You can also make two small green dots for pupils and stick them in the middle of the eyes.

Your DIY clay butterfly craft is complete! Now you can go ahead and create a little clay caterpillar too, using discs of green clay and a red clay ball as the head. Add eyes and antennae just as you did for the butterfly.

There you go, a gorgeous DIY clay butterfly all done! The best part about this project is that all you need is air-drying clay, and your hands! Go ahead and experiment by creating more butterflies with wings in different patterns – let your imagination run wild!