Together with Pia and her book “Vanily” we give you great tips for a relaxed everyday camping life and road trip with your kids in 5 blog posts

Part 3: DIY from natural materials

Even if everyday life on the road offers a lot of adventure and entertainment for children, doing crafts together can provide fun, a pleasant change or provide some peace and quiet. And the best thing: you don't have to carry a huge craft suitcase with you from home! A few basics in your luggage are enough, the rest can be found in nature.

Make magic wands and butterflies from natural materials

Colorful butterflies and magical wands made of horse mackerel

What would a real fairytale forest be without magical butterflies and colorful magic wands? This DIY is easy to implement and can be modified again and again. There are no limits to creativity and the wonderful thing is that the craft results are also great for playing with while traveling.

What you need from nature:

- thin branches in short and long

What you need from your craft department:

- Felt
- Wool
- Scissors
- Glue
- Googly eyes

That's how it works:

For the butterflies you first shorten the branches to palm length, for the magic wands to forearm length. Now it's time for the wool: Tie the thread to one end of the branch and wrap it tightly along the branch to the other end. Make a hidden double knot here and cut off the excess ribbon. Leave some branches sticking out at both ends. Now cut out wings out of felt for the butterflies. Make sure that you cut out both wings as one area so that they can be easily attached later. To do this, you can fold the felt and imagine that you are cutting out the outline of the letter “B”. For the magic wand you need two stars or hearts made of felt of the same size. Coat the “body” of the butterfly, i.e. the wrapped branch, with glue on one side and place it with the adhesive side in the middle of the wings. Now the butterfly is only missing eyes. You can use funny wiggly eyes or stick on small natural materials that you can find. The stars or hearts are also covered with glue on one side and placed on top of each other with the identical sides, with the tip of the long branch in between.

Text and idea:
Pia Maack aka dieflashpackerin / Excerpt from her book “Vanily - Vanlife + Family”

You can find Pia’s book “Vanliy” with great tips for vanlife and family, parental leave and road trips here in our shop!