Make nature art bugs from leaves and twigs. This creative leaf art really pops on bright painted backgrounds made from recycled cardboard and makes a fun wall art idea.

You might also like our paper towel earth sun catchers

Insects are fascinating. I’ve always encouraged my kids to indulge their curiosity when it comes to bugs rather than their fear.

How have I done this? By buying them non-fiction books packed with interesting facts and photographs of real bugs, and giving them things like bug catchers as gifts. I don’t encourage my girls to keep bugs for long, just to catch them and take a good before releasing them back into the garden.

We’ve made lots of bug crafts in the past, some inspired by the real thing like our cardboard tube grasshoppers, and others more by fantasy like our Valentine love bugs. These nature art bugs are somewhere in between. They’re inspired by the shape and look of real bugs but are not based on any insect in particular.

You can make this eco-friendly bug craft using recycled cardboard as the base and nature items collected from your garden as the key material.

I’ve painted over these bugs with mod-podge. This helps to give them a glossy, shiny protective coat that will stop the leaves from crumbling and drying out although they may still fade, curl and brown a little over time. You can use store-bought mod podge as I have or make your own DIY version by mixing PVA glue with water at a 50:50 ratio.

The natural materials I’ve collected to make these were all picked fresh from our garden, kids will have fun collecting assorted leaves and twigs to work with.

How to make Nature art bugs

You will need:

Recycled heavy cardboard cut into squares (ours are random sizes, and not perfectly square)
Acrylic paint
Tacky craft glue – ordinary craft glue probably won’t hold well enough. If you don’t have tacky craft glue at home, you could try using blu-tack to hold the sticks and leaves in place.
Mod podge
Hole punch
Paint brush
Leaves, sticks and twigs from the garden in assorted shapes and sizes

How to:

Paint your cardboard square with acrylic paint and allow to dry
Arrange some nature items on the painted square to look like an insect to get your basic design
Remove the items and then place them back on with tacky craft glue to hold them down
Paint over with mod podge
To make an eye, punch a hold from a leaf and use the circle you have removed as an eye (or find a naturally occurring round shape from nature)

Voila! All done