Recycled Love Bugs

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Our 31 Days of love series continues with a super duper cute Valentines Crafts for Preschool! I hope you have been saving some of your recycled materials from the busy Christmas season.. as it is time for some adorable Recycled Love Bugs – a great Valentine’s Day Craft for kids! Welcoming Emily from Making with Mommy.. a MUST SEE blogger and instagram account! How we love Love Bug Crafts for Kids!

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

These adorable upcycled love bugs where first published in Jan 2019

How to make Recycled Love Bugs – Valentine’s With Kids

Hello! My name is Emily from Making with Mommy and I am so excited to be sharing these fun, recycled “Love Bugs” with you! My 2.5 year old, O, and I love creating process art projects using recycled materials like cardboard, toilet roll tubes and newspaper. He is particularly fond of animal crafts, so these bugs were right up his alley. We used a Valentine’s Day color pallette to decorate them so that he can give them as Valentine’s gifts! Read on to see how we made these crafty little friends.

Recycled Love Bugs – Materials Needed:

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

*You can use ANY crafting supplies and/or recyclables that you have on hand to decorate your Love Bugs! These were the things we collected from our craft cabinet! But here is a list of what we used from the recycling box!

  • Scrap cardboard
  • Acrylic paint
  • Hot glue gun
  • *Tissue paper
  • *Scrapbook paper or painted paper scraps
  • *Pom poms
  • *Pipe cleaners
  • *Bottle caps
  • *Googly eyes
  • *Paper straws
  • *Beads
  • *Craft foam
  • *Bubble wrap

How To make Recycled Love Bugs

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Step 1: Cut shapes out of your scrap cardboard. These shapes will become the bodies of your Love Bugs! I cut a variety of circles, hearts and ovals in different sizes. Because we were going for a Valentine’s Day theme, the hearts were an important component – we used at least one heart shape on each bug!

Step 2: Have your kids select shapes from the cardboard pieces and design their own bugs! There are no rules here – they can choose to make their bugs look like real insects, or be entirely imaginary! Help them hot glue their pieces together if they are not old enough to do it themselves.

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Step 3: Paint your bugs and allow them to dry. Acrylic paint will give you brighter colors, but you can use washable paint instead if you prefer.

Step 4: Use your hot glue gun and craft supplies to decorate your bugs! Allow your kids to be creative with the materials and use them however they like! You can make legs from pipe cleaners, paper straws and craft foam! Use foam, bubble wrap, or tissue paper to make wings. We glued tissue paper shapes and scrapbook paper hearts to some of our bugs to give them spots. We also liked using bottle caps and pom poms to make large bug eyes – the options are endless!

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Tips: When you are doing process art with your kids, you want to release control and allow your kids to do whatever they want. It’s a great opportunity for your kids to exercise their creativity! Don’t be worried that they are too young – O is 2.5 and I give him free reign over projects all the time. Help them along with guiding questions. Rather than pushing them to use a material in a specific way, ask questions like “What do you think you could do with these straws?” and “This bubble wrap is interesting – do you think you could use this somehow?” You’ll be amazed at what your kids can do! And they will be so proud to have a project that they made by themselves!

You can do so many things with your completed bugs – give them as Valentines gifts, hang them up as decorations, or use them as toys to play with! We hope you enjoy! Scroll down to check out some of our other favorite winter crafts from our blog, Making with Mommy! You can also follow us on Instagram for more kids process art ideas @makingwithmommy.

  

Snowman Suncatcher

Soda Bottle Snow Globe

Christmas Tree Weaving

More wonderful Love Bug Crafts from the 31 Days of Love Series:

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Paper Plate Love Bug with Finger Prints.

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Paper Bag Love Bug Crafts for Kids

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

TP Roll Love Bug Craft for Kids

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

DIY Love Bug Corner Bookmarks

Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Love Bug Reward Chart (free printable)Easy Recycled Love Bugs - a great Valentines Craft for kids. Get creative with recycled cardboard and other bits for Valentines. Great Valentines Art for Kids and Preschoolers #Valentines #recycled #lovebugs #kids #preschool

Paper Plate Love Bug Twirler

And these of course all feature in our extensive list of Valentine’s Day Crafts for Preschoolers!