Ladybug Crafts for Kids

In this fun activity, you can watch ladybugs doing what they do best: eating aphids, harmful garden pests.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Capture a ladybug, and place it in an aquarium. Cover the aquarium with mesh. Find a plant that has aphids. (Look near the growing tip where aphids tend to congregate.)

Step 2: Have an adult use the pruning knife to cut a long section of a plant stem with aphids at the tip. Place the cut end into a cup of water, and put the cup and stem into the aquarium.

Step 3: Watch the ladybug. In time, it will approach and land on the stem. Watch it eating the aphids.

Step 4: Release the ladybug.

Safety Tip

Have an adult use the pruning knife.

What Happened?

The aphids are attached near the tip because this new growth is a tender part of the plant. They insert their straw-like proboscises into the stem and suck nutrients from the plant. The ladybug lands on the stem and then travels toward the tip. On its way, it seizes and devours the aphids. Ladybugs are valuable because aphids can damage plants.

On the next page, you'll learn how to make bugs out of coffee cans.

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Grown-ups may use coffee as a morning eye opener, but these fun, flying coffee can bugs are even better reasons for them to drink up! Here's how to make some plastic insects you can keep or catch.

What You'll Need

Step 1: Take the plastic freshness lid from an empty coffee can. Decide what type of bug you'd like to make, and choose construction paper colors that correspond to that bug -- if you were making a ladybug you would use red paper. Trace a circle on a piece of construction paper using the lid. Cut out the circle just inside the line so it is a little smaller than the lid. Glue the paper to the top of the plastic lid.

Step 2: Decorate your bug, maybe adding a black head and black spots for a ladybug, green wings and big eyes for a fly, or purple and pink for a bug from your imagination! If you'd like, add chenille stems for antennae.

Step 3: Now it's time to toss your colorful insect through the air and see how it flies. For extra fun, set up bowls or boxes as targets and assign them points. Have a contest with a friend to see whose bug can accumulate the most points.

Check out the next page to find out how to make a ladybug-inspired pencil holder.

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With their bright red bodies and black dots, ladybugs make colorful decorations. Learn how to make a ladybug pencil holder.

What You'll Need:

Step 1: Form the red clay into a large ball, approximately 5 inches in diameter. Form the black clay into a smaller ball, approximately 2 inches in diameter. Scrape a small area of the surface of each ball with a pencil tip to create a textured patch. Gently push the balls together at the textured areas, then gently push the entire shape against your work surface to flatten the bottom of the ladybug.

Step 2: Use the edge of a ruler or plastic knife to make a mark down the center of the ladybug's back. Form 6 small 1/2-inch balls of black clay, and gently flatten them onto the back of the ladybug (see illustration for placement).

Step 3: Use a pencil tip to create eyes and a mouth. Firmly poke the pencil through the black spots into the ladybug's back. Let dry 24 hours.

On the next page, try another fun activity inspired by ladybugs and learn how to make a Lucky Ladybug Picture Frame.

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Decorate a frame with these cute creepy-crawlies, and display your favorite photo inside your new ladybug picture frame. Your friends will bug out over how creative you are!

What You'll Need (makes 4 ladybugs):

Step 1: Make as many ladybugs as you want to decorate the frame. For each bug, glue a black pom onto a red pom, then glue the wiggle eyes onto the black pom.

Step 2: Glue each ladybug to the acrylic frame. (You may want to insert a photo first so you can decide where the best spots are for your bugs!)

Step 3: Using dimensional paint, draw a thin line down the middle of each red pom, and add tiny dots all over. (Tip: It's easiest to add the dimensional paint to the ladybug after you've glued it onto the frame.)

Step 4: Cut the 6mm green stem to the length of the frame, and glue it along the bottom.

Step 5: Cut the 3mm green stem into various lengths, and glue them to the 6mm stem so they look like tufts of grass.

On the next page, learn how to paint your nails so that they look like ladybugs.

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You'll be sure to draw attention with nails painted like lucky ladybugs. Find out how below.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home! With nails like this, you'll be spotted wherever you go.

Step 1: Paint nails any color. Let dry.

Step 2: Using red paint, paint a circle anywhere on the nail. Let dry.

Step 3: Using black paint and the tip of a thin brush, paint a line through the middle of the circle and add 3 dots in each half of the red circle.

Step 4: Paint a tiny black circle at the top of the ladybug's body, directly above the line that runs through the middle.

Step 5: Paint 3 tiny black lines on each side of the body (legs) and 2 tiny lines coming out of the head (antennae).

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ABOUT THE CRAFT DESIGNERS

Ladybug Pencil Holder by Cindy Groom Harry and staff

Lucky Ladybugs by Shari Finger and Susan Tumblety