Valentine’s Day Craft: Little Love Bugs

One of our favorite things to get out of storage every year when changing the house from winter to Valentine’s Day decor are our “Little Love Bugs”. This super easy Valentine’s Day craft – sometimes called little monsters or bugs – is easy and fun for the whole family!

Originally published in January 2016

When I was scouring the web doing research playing on Pinterest a few weeks ago, I stumbled across this adorable Valentine’s Day craft. How cute are these adorable little yarn “love bugs”?! The picture I saw led to nowhere, so I tracked down something similar at East Coast Mommy and made a few adjustments. (Hers were made with egg cartons and are equally cute, but we preferred these “cup based bugs: :))

These were absolutely the most fun we’ve had crafting in a long time. I couldn’t stop making these sweet little things! Want to make your own adorable little community of critters? Read on!

Supplies:

• a piece of cardboard approximately 2″ x 4″
• small paper cups like 3 oz Dixie cups (we happened to have plastic on hand in a similar size)
• yarn in your choice of colors
• hot glue gun & sticks (You can certainly use school glue or craft glue which is safer for kids, but not nearly as quick. We lack patience, so I opted for hot glue!)
• googly eyes, pipe cleaners, scrapbook paper and punches, beads and any other decorations you’d like

Love Bug Instructions:

1. Choose the yard you would like for the body. Wrap it around the longer side of the cardboard 150-200 times. Cut the end, and with another small piece of yarn, tie a not around the strands on one side. g
   
2. Flip over the wrapped cardboard, and cut through each strand on the side opposite the knot.
3. Glue the yarn onto an upside down cup (we chose to do so knot side down, but it’s not important!). Depending on how much glue you use, you may want to spread the yarn out before placing it on the cup. Alternatively, you can glue it down and spread the yarn around the cup after. 
4. When the glue is dry, you can begin decorating however you’d like! We started out making pretty straight forward “bugs”, but got creative and ended up calling many (all?) of them monsters, instead. After all, we certainly don’t have four-eyed bugs around here… for which I am very grateful!We had a blast making all different combinations, and I think our little bugs/monsters would still be multiplying if we had the time.
   

(Oh! Do you want some “hair” like a few of those above? Repeat Steps 1 and 2 with your selected yarn, only this time wrap 20-30 times around the shorter end of the cardboard.)

Have the best time creating your Valentine’s Day (or any time of the year!) Love Bugs. Be warned though… they’re so cute that it’s kind of addicting!

Looking for other family activities? Check out this DIY fairy garden!