How to make pasta fireflies

• Blanched peanuts
• Large pasta shells
• Pasta bow ties
• Bamboo skewers
• Small googly eyes
• Hot glue gun
• Resene testpots in your choice of colours, Fleur used Resene Meteor, Resene Blue Diamond, Resene Bondi Blue, Resene Grapevine, Resene Lip Service and Resene Centre Stage
• For the glow-in-the-dark version – Resene White testpot and Resene FX Nightlight
• Small craft paintbrush

Instructions

Step 1:  Assemble your supplies; you will need some long bamboo skewers, some blanched peanut halves, pasta bow ties, large pasta shells and some small googly eyes. (Photo 1).

Step 2:  Start by painting the pasta shells in Resene Meteor (Photo 2).

Step 3:  Paint each of the pasta bow ties in your choice of colours. Fleur used Resene Blue Diamond, Resene Bondi Blue, Resene Grapevine, Resene Lip Service and Resene Centre Stage. (Photo 3).

Step 4:  To assemble the fireflies, use a hot glue gun to glue half of a blanched peanut to the end of a long bamboo skewer. This is the head. (Photo 4). Fleur left the head unpainted but you could paint it using one of your Resene testpot colours if you wished.

Step 5:  Glue the wings (pasta bow ties) underneath the head (Photo 5) followed by the pasta shell bodies. (Photo 6).

Step 6:  Finish by gluing on two googly eyes on to the head. (Photo 7). Or you could paint the eyes on using Resene testpots in Resene Black and Resene White.

Top tip:  For an alternative finish, instead of painting the pasta shell bodies in Resene Meteor, paint them with Resene White followed by three coats of Resene FX Nightlight, allowing for each coat to dry before applying the next coat. Resene FX Nightlight will give your fireflies a glow-in-the-dark effect. (Photo 8).

Project and images by Fleur Thorpe. Jan 2022.