Decorate Your Garden Fence with Pretty Butterflies (kids craft idea)

Butterflies are a symbol of transformation, beauty, hope, rebirth, freedom, endurance, and love. Over the past four years, as I’ve worked to rebuild my life following the end of my marriage, butterflies have come to mean a lot to me. I’m slightly addicted to butterfly jewelry and butterfly stickers. And one grey, rainy day in mid-February, as I looked out my patio door at my backyard, an idea leapt into my head. What if I got the kids to paint butterflies to decorate the back fence?

Decorate Your Garden Fence with Pretty Butterflies (kids craft idea). Photo of boy painting butterfly with a paint palette beside him.

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Painting the Wooden Butterflies

I ordered a pack of wooden butterflies and explained my plan to my kids. They were more than happy to help with this project, along with my friend’s kids, who were over for the day. Soon paint and butterflies were spread across our dining room table. The kids chattered about colours and techniques and butterflies as they worked. I helped keep their paint palettes supplied with paint, got them clean water to rinse their paint brushes with, and set finished butterflies out of the way.

Kids painting wooden butterflies with acrylic paints.

I have a plastic table cloth to spread over the table to protect it when the kids are painting. I also checked to ensure that our guests were okay with getting paint on their clothes (and would have offered them one of my kids’ raggedy T-shirts if they weren’t). I also used disposable cups for the paint water and gave them each a shop paper towel to dab their brushes on.

Two girls painting butterflies together.

I loved seeing the kids’ creativity as they worked on their butterflies. They tried to make some look like beaches or sunsets. Others were decorated with polka dots. They painted a few butterflies look like Monarchs and other butterflies were completely imaginary.

11-year-old paints a wooden butterfly with blue swirls.

Once the kids had painted all the butterflies, I lined them up to dry. Then I spent several days spray-varnishing the butterflies. I did two coats on the backs of the butterflies and more on the fronts. We get a lot of rain here in the lower mainland and I want the butterflies to last for a long time!

Painted wooden butterflies - kids craft idea.

Then I nailed the butterflies to our back fence. It’s a dark brown fence that’s seen better days. This spring, we had to get deck screws to fasten some of the boards back on more tightly. My son has covered it in muddy handprints while he’s been playing in the garden. I did try to wash it off before hanging the butterflies, and I ended up hanging them along the top to hopefully keep them out of reach of energetic play.

Brightly painted butterflies decorate a brown fence.

The butterflies are a bright spot of colour in our backyard. Our dining room and living room windows look out over the yard, and now I can see the butterflies along the fence each time I glance out. Those bright spots of colour give me such a boost of joy each time I see them.