Collaborative Butterfly Art

The Art of Giving fundraiser is one of my favorite events of the year! Last year Mila and I made a collaborative painting to donate for our 6th Art of Giving, but it was not the usual in person event at the hospital with tons of kids. This year, the event was back to business and I made a collaborative butterfly art peice with tons of kids! Best part? Our peice raised $10,000 for the for Dell Childrens Hospital!

Collaborative art projects from years past

String art (1st Art of Giving)
Tissue paper art (2nd Art of Giving)
Spray bottle and syringe art (3rd of Art of Giving)
Bleeding tissue paper house (4th Art of Giving)
Matisse inspired collage (5th Art of Giving)
Collaborative tape painting (6th Art of Giving)

Materials needed for collaborative butterfly art

Large canvas, we used a 3×3
75- 2″ butterfly cut outs
White card stock
Thin tip markers
Hot glue gun

How to make collaborative butterfly art with kids

Collaborative butterfly art can be made with any group of people, young or old! We donate it to the hospital to be used for a fundraising event. Out butterfly art sold for $10,000 this year!

Step 1- Cut out butterflies

My sweet friend Tisa from This is Tisa graciously cut out the butterflies for me with her Cricut. She used white card stock and cut out 5 different shapes of butterflies and dragonflies. Each butterfly shape is 2″ tall. Thank you, Tisa!

Step 2- Design butterflies

Let kids and adults decorate butterflies! I had a set of 50 thin tip markers and let kids decorate as many butterflies as they wanted. We had 75 butterflies designed in 3 hours.

Step 3- Arrange

Initially, I thought I would arrange the butterflies spaced out more like specimen art on the canvas. I tried tons of arrangements and ended up with liking the swoop arrangement the best.

Step 4- Fold & hot glue

I folded each of the butterfly’s wings upward. Then, I added a small strip of hot glue to the back of each butterfly and attached each one to the canvas.

I also made a tiny version of the butterfly art for Dell Children’s to auction!

I got the idea for a collaborative butterfly art peice from my friend, Rachel. She shared this butterfly specimen art she made with her kiddos class and I loved it!