Here’s a super easy DIY craft recipe that shows you how to make clay (that’s actually more like an air-drying dough) and turn it in to some beautiful butterflies.

DIY craft recipe :: how to make clay

To make the air-drying clay/dough you will need one part PVA glue and two parts cornflour {UK name} / cornstarch {US name}.

Then all you need to do is mix the two together.

In a matter of minutes you’ll go from this :: to this :: to this, and you’ll have a lovely, white moldable dough, similar in consistency to ready-roll icing/frosting.

Then you can roll out the dough and use some cookie cutters to stamp out some shapes. We’re making butterflies today, but watch out for a beautiful loveheart version in my play dough e-book.

You can use a pencil or skewer to make a hole in your butterfly, if you want to be able to hang it up.

And you can use a dry paintbrush to sweep over the surface and remove any clay dough crumbs that you might have on the surface of your butterflies.

Then you can set your butterflies on a flat surface {we used a baking tray lined with baking parchment} and leave them overnight to dry out.

Once they are dry the hardened clay dough is a wonderful surface to decorate, and it takes pencils and wax crayons really well.

Your children can add colour and patterns and symmetry to make each butterfly unique.

Then you can add string or ribbon threaded through the holes so you can hang up your butterflies. We’re adding ours to our seasonal tree which sits year-round in our entrance hall – click through if you’d like to see the Valentine, Easter and New Year versions.