This simple dream catcher has extra special meaning. Taken from an old story, it carries the idea that while you sleep, the butterfly gathers up all negative energy, thoughts and dreams and cocoons them up, then carries them far away on its wings and drops them off. It then returns  and when you awake you are filled with wonderful energy and love.  There is a special poem to go with it which can be hung beside it or given rolled up as a scroll for a gift. Either way, children and adults alike will love it! You might also want to check out our Dream Catcher Vision Board post which combines two wonderful ideas into one!

POEM: This poem is a printable in the free download packet. Frame and hang it next to your dream catcher or roll it up and tie it with a ribbon and give with the dream catcher as a gift.

Special Thanks goes to Jessica Serrano-Gregg who shared the wonderful butterfly story which was one her abuela (grandmother) taught her as a child. We adapted it for the poem.

Dream Catcher Supplies

NOTE ON FRAMES: We used an 8×10 oval frame from Walmart. If you can’t find one of those, you could use any square or 8×10 frame and simply put scrapbook paper as the background and center your butterfly on it.

• Frame choice on Amazon.
• 12×12 frames on Amazon
• Cardstock scrapbook paper with gold in the mix
• Feathers (we used 10)
• Metallic Paints For frame we used Martha Stewart’s Gold for the feathers and Martha Stewart’s  Champagne
• Cream or Ivory Paint
• Hot Glue
• Cord/String for hanging feathers
• Pattern and Poem download below

Download Patterns & Poem

Instructions

Gather your supplies.

Paint your fame if needed. We chose a cream color.

  After your paint dries give it a solid coat of Martha Stewart’s Metallic Gold or something similar. Her metallic and pearl paints are amazing!

Print and cut out the butterfly templates. Because the poem speaks of the color “gold” you may want to keep some of that color involved. We used a solid gold glitter type sheet for the largest butterfly.

We traced our large butterfly on the back of our sparkle paper and cut it out.

The other two butterflies were cut out of matching cardstock.

Cut 8″ pieces of cord that will hold your feathers. We used 10 feathers and attached three to each of the outside cords and four to the inside cord.

Paint the ends of your feathers with a metallic gold paint.

Glue three feathers along each cord, one below the other.

These are the final feather groups ready to attach to the frame.

One set of butterfly templates should fit inside the oval 8×10 frame as shown. (You can do this other ways too and just center them in the middle of a normal frame.)

Use a small amount of hot glue to tack down the butterfly wings inside the frame edge. In this set up there is no backing sheet on the frame.

Fold your other two smaller butterflies so they bend upward.

Glue the smallest one onto the mid sized butterfly as shown.

Then glue them to the center of the largest butterfly.

Glue the feather pieces to the bottom inside of the frame spacing them evenly.

For the final touch, cut out the mini butterflies.

Fold them as shown.

Glue them onto the feather groupings.