Butterfly Window Watercolors

Did you know today is National Monarch Day?  Well at least that is what one of my favorite blog moms has in her awesome February calendar.  Go check out Se7en for her awesome calendar days.  We have been having so much fun with some of these and it's been a fun addition to our homeschooling journey.

Today in celebration of Monarch butterflies we decided to make some colorful watercolors for our windows.  It was a great reason to take down all the paper snowflakes in the windows that honestly had overstayed their welcome.  Now we have beautiful bits of color all around and the effect is really quite cheery.

 Here's what we did.  (I got this general idea from the Crafty Crow, but we modified it a bit to make butterflies and valentines and paw prints and all sorts of shapes.)  We cut out shapes from paper towels...

 Then we mixed up some really watery watercolors....folded up our shapes again and again...and dipped corners into different colors.

 Then we (carefully) unfolded them.  The colors and folds make brilliant designs and look like this!

 Set them aside to dry for a bit on a big old towel and you're done!  All this arting left little Hen wanting to join in, but the dipping was a bit messy for him so we got out the paper and brushes too.

And pretty soon everyone was painting and one boy was making stencils out of cardstock and we all had a nice time of creativity and togetherness, which was long overdue.  We have all been rather sick lately with Croup.  It's been a long week, but I am hopeful we will be better soon.  The sun is shining today.  The light brings with it hope and freshness and a sense that all is well.