Valentine Love Bug

These sweet love bugs make a cute craft for Valentine’s Day, whether to put on the wall or to send instead of cards.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, today’s craft is Valentine themed, without being a Valentine’s Day card! Yes, today it’s time for something a little bit different – a sweet Valentine love bug.

These charming little paper bugs have heart shaped wings and some pretty cute heart antennae.

They are also easy to make with your kids at home thanks to our ready-to-print template.

Colour and decorate your love bug by printing the template on white cardstock, or use coloured cardstock and just get straight to the cutting out and assembling.

If you want to see how we made our heart-themed bugs, check out the materials list and step-by-step instructions, which are coming right up.

What you will need

• love bug printable (you can find it at the end of the post)

• cardstock (two colours of your choice, or just one sheet of white if your kids want to colour in the love bug)

• googly eyes x 2

• pipecleaner x 1

• scissors

• gluestick

How to make your love bug, step by step

Step 1

First of all, you’ll need to print off the love bug template.

If your kids want to colour their own love bug, then you’ll want to print the template onto white cardstock.

If you want to use coloured cardstock to create your love bug (like ours), you’ll need two different coloured pieces of cardstock on hand. Print the template onto one of the colours, and save the other piece for step 3 below.

Step 2

With your template printed out, cut out each of the pieces. (If you’re colouring your love bug, colour first before cutting out).

Step 3

To add a bit of additional colour to your love bug, use one of the smaller heart shapes as a template and draw around it twice on a different coloured piece of cardstock.

Next, cut out the two hearts you traced.

Step 4

To make the two heart-shaped wings of your love bug, glue each of the smaller hearts onto the centre of the larger hearts.

(To make things look neat, put glue on the side with the pencil lines from tracing the heart).

Step 5

Next, attach the two wings to the back of the love bug’s body.

Your child might also want to colour in the heart on the love bug’s body and/or draw some extra decoration on the wings or body.

Step 6

It’s now time to turn your attention to the love bug’s face.

We used two googly eyes for our love bugs. I went for two eyes of different sizes to add a bit of character, however my kids didn’t approve of this and used two eyes of the same size for their love bugs (we agreed to disagree…).

Then you can add a mouth underneath.

Step 7

And now for the antennae! Cut a piece of pipecleaner to about 3 inches in length.

Fold it in half and then glue on the two small hearts to the top of each end.

We used a glue stick for this, although hot glue would also work well if your gluestick is not up to the job.

To attach the antennae to the love bug, twist the bottom of the V shape and then tape to the back of the bug.

And with that, your Valentine love bug should be complete!

I think you’ll agree, these finished love bugs are pretty cute. Display them on the wall or window for Valentine’s Day, or write a message on the wing and send it to a loved one/family member instead of a Valentine’s Day card.

My kiddos and I enjoyed making ours together last night. I love the way that despite us all using the same template, our finished bugs all have their own personalities.

Want to make a Valentine love bug at home with your kids?

You can get the template below:

Want to save this Valentine love bug for later? Then why not pin it?

Looking for more Valentine’s Day crafts and activities? Why not make a striped heart Valentine’s Day card? Or a heart paper crown?