Glow-in-the-Dark Fireflies | Handmade Charlotte

This post is sponsored by Plaid Enterprises.

Whether you call them lightning bugs, fireflies, or glow bugs, we can’t help but smile when we spot one flying around on a summer’s night. Have you and your family spotted any fireflies yet this summer? We haven’t caught any in jars, but these DIY painted pasta ones are the next best thing.

And we haven’t even mentioned the best part yet – thanks to Folk Art’s glowing acrylic paint, these fireflies’ abdomens will light up just like the real things! Make a whole bunch of these cuties like we did, charge them up under a lamp, and kids will have a blast making them fly around your backyard just after sunset. Who knows, maybe you’ll even attract some real fireflies! Keep reading to see the full instructions below.

what you need:

Folk Art Acrylic Paint
Folk Art Glow Acrylic Paint
Paintbrushes
Googley eyes
Hot glue guns
Wooden skewers
Pasta noodles (farfalloni, large shells, and lumache rigate)

how-to:

Step 1
Paint the farfalloni pasta in whatever shades you like! Let dry.

Note: traditional farfalle (bowtie) pasta also works here, but the jumbo size of these ones works perfectly as the firefly wings.

Step 2
Time to paint the fireflies’ heads! Same as before, apply a coat of paint to each lumache rigate shell and let dry. If you can’t find these exact noodles at your supermarket, smaller shells, orrichiette, or similar would be a good alternative.

Step 3
Now the most important part – the firefly’s glowing abdomen! Apply a coat of white paint onto the large shells and let dry completely. Then apply a few coats of glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint onto each, allowing to dry between coats. The more coats you apply, the more it will glow!