Tag Archive for: Butterfly kit

Monday morning found me and my husband enjoying one of our favorite outings…..to our local Costco store.  We both love going there but for very different reasons.  I love the book and DVD section while my husband loves to taste all the samples of food that he can find.

His love for the food samples at Costco (or at any store for that matter) used to be a problem for me because he would frequently disappear with our shopping cart while he was on the hunt for samples and I would be stuck with an armful of shopping items, vainly searching for him.

So, we have a new arrangement where he disappears and can search for as many samples as he wants and I KEEP the shopping cart.  He does check in with me from time to time and to bring me a sample or two.

Well while we were shopping on Monday, I saw a wonderful gift idea in the toy section.  

wonderful gift idea

It is a butterfly & ladybug kit.  

We bought the butterfly version last Christmas for our kids and sent away for the free caterpillars in springtime and had a wonderful time seeing the caterpillars transform into butterflies and then releasing them into the wild.  You can read more about our butterfly raising experience here if you like.

wonderful gift idea

My daughter, Ruthie, brings home ladybugs in the spring that she finds on the school playground and then releases them in our garden.  She will be thrilled with this gift and I know the kids will enjoy raising butterflies again as well as a new adventure raising ladybugs.

So, if you have a Costco store nearby, go and buy this now (hopefully your local Costco has them too) – my cost was $20.  I had two shoppers stop me while I was shopping to ask where I found this, so I do not know how long they will have them in stock.

You can find other products from the company who creates this kit.

Well, now I have one more gift crossed off of my list…  🙂

I am sure that many of you have been on the edge of your seats for the next installment of my youngest daughter’s butterfly raising adventures 😉  In case you missed it, you can read the first installment here.

We have been waiting for the caterpillars to form their chrysalis so that we could take them out of their containers and transfer them to their new butterfly enclosure.  

butterfly enclosure

The caterpillars attached themselves to the underside of the lids and formed a chrysalis.  And so, the next step was to carefully take the lids off and take the caterpillars (chrysalis) out. 

caterpillars

To be honest, I was a little nervous about this part.  I didn’t want to accidentally dislodge any of the chrysalis from the undersides of the container lids.

butterfly enclosure

At this point, one of the caterpillars within the chrysalis began wiggling madly about.  Now, I usually pride myself on not being squeamish around bugs, but the wiggling kind of grossed me out a bit.

butterfly enclosure

The next step was to pin the lids to the lower sides of the butterfly enclosure.  

*You may notice that the enclosure comes with its own beautiful silk flowers, something that I try to stay from….I like real flowers best 😉

butterfly enclosure

The last step was to hang the butterfly enclosure outdoors and wait for the new butterflies to emerge in a few days.  

We can hardly wait….