Homemade Butterfly Halloween Costume

 My daughter has to dress up as an animal for her Noah's Ark party at school this Tuesday. After spending several weeks discussing which animal she wanted to be (it changed daily from alligator to lion to dog to cat to mouse), she settled on a butterfly. So I made a trip to Wal-Mart for some poster board, acrylic jewels, felt, glitter glue, and Velcro straps. The first step was to cut wings out of the poster board. I had her lay down on the poster board so I could draw the wings the right size for her body. If you have an older child who wants a butterfly costume I suggest using two pieces of poster board for the right and left side of the wings, or top and bottom. After I measured, I free-handed some wings onto the poster board and then cut them out. The wings were not perfectly symmetrical, but I think that just gives a more realistic impression of a butterfly in flight.

 The next step was to let my daughter paint the wings with several shades of pink, acrylic craft paint. (We used "cranberry", "fuchia", and "baby pink".) She had specifically asked to be a pink butterfly. She painted one side of the poster board and we let it dry. Then we painted the other side and let that dry. After the paint dried we used glitter glue to create designs on the wings and put some acrylic jewels on the wing to add extra sparkle. After drying, we did the same to the other side of the wings.

 I then cut a sheet of black felt into approx. 1/2 in. strips and hot glued the strips around the edges of the wings. I made sure that I could fold the felt over the edge and then hot glued the overlapping felt onto the other side of the wings.

The last step was to attach straps. Maddy picked pink straps. They are the loop and sew straps in the sewing aisle of the craft section of Wal-Mart. I hot glued the rough textured strap to the back of the wings and then measured the soft strap to size on the front and trimmed it to fit. I crisscrossed the straps across the body to hold the wings on more securely. I found a black and white polka dot headband at Wal-Mart as well and twisted black pipe cleaners around the top of the headband to create butterfly antenna. 

Now I have a little girl who is in love with her butterfly wings and can't wait until Tuesday to wear her costume to school. She will wear a black turtleneck, black pants, and black gloves to complete her costume.

"And the Word of God says..."

"And the Word of God says..."

This is what my three year old daughter comes home saying almost every time she comes home from her Mother's Day Out program at a local church. I'm always so impressed and thankful that they are impressing the importance of God's Word on her heart. However, I've always believed that the responsibility of getting God's Word in her heart lies, first and foremost, with me.
In relation to teaching my daughter God's Word, I have lately done much reflection on Deut. 6:6-9. This scripture talks about the importance of the Israelites impressing God's commands on their kids hearts as they are about to enter the promise land. In my reflections, part about writing God's Word "on the door frames of your houses and gates" really stood out in my mind. I begin to think about my house when I was growing up. I can't remember much of the artwork I had in apartments and dorms in college, or even the first house I had after I got married, but I can clearly remember most of the pictures and artwork from my house growing up. I remember in the kitchen, my mom had a picture that had the poem "A Kitchen Prayer" written on it. I can almost quote the entire poem by heart: "God bless my little kitchen Lord, I love it every nook. Bless me as I do my work, wash pots and pans and cook. And may the meals that I prepare be seasoned from above, with (this is where I lose it a little bit) something, something ,something, and most of all they love." I think that it is crazy that I remember that random poem hanging in my Mom's kitchen, but it makes sense. Even though we moved several times when I was a kid, I can remember seeing that poem, every day, every time I had to do the dishes, for years and years and years.
I want God's Word  to be in front of my family's eyes, everyday, as much as possible. In the past year, I've been working on canvases to hang around the house that have verses that are important to our family. I want my daughter to remember those verses like I remember the kitchen prayer. Okay, better than I remember the kitchen prayer. I want these verses to be what pop into her head when she faces a tough situation, needs to encourage a friend, needs encouragement for herself, wants to thank God, and when she need guidance for life's decisions.

Phil. 1:6

Corinthians 13:13

So my encouragement to you today is to some how get God's Word in front of your kids eyes where they can read it everyday. You may not literally write it on a doorpost of your house, but you can put God's Word on canvas, in a photo, a drawing, a wall stencil, a sticky note. Whatever you think will catch their eyes, get it on your walls. As parents, we have no job more important than "impressing" God's Word on our children's hearts.