Saturday, June 21, 2014

Butterflies Everywhere! *mini tutorial included

I am making a butterfly mobile for a precious special needs little girl.  She loves bright colors and butterflies so I've been making them like crazy!  These are a fair amount of work so it's taking me more time than I originally wanted to take but I'm sure she will love it when I finally get finished with it.
I will post another day when I actually have the mobile done but for now, enjoy these butterflies!

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I used black Onyz for the outline of the butterflies.  I explain that process below.  As you can see in these photos, I shaped the butterflies so that they would be 3-dimensional.  Once they're hanging from the mobile they should look like they are flying.

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I ran the butterfly dies through my Big Shot using the Onyz paper  and all the little pieces came out as you can see on the right side of the photo.  I used Heavenly White paper for the background of the butterfly and colored it using copics.  I placed the black outline on top of the white paper and colored in the individual sections.  I then took the black outline off and expanded the coloring a bit so that if I didn't glue the outline exactly where I originally had it, it would still look ok.

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When gluing the black outline on top of the colored butterfly cut-out, it's important to shape the card as you glue the together.  If you wait until the glue dries then the paper won't bend right.  The Onyz paper  is a nice, thick and sturdy paper.  When you glue it to the other paper it holds that shape nicely.  I colored both sides of the white butterfly paper so that it is colorful from any angle.  So... I cut out another black outline and glued it to the back.  The front of this butterfly is below.

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Here is another butterfly using pink, blue and purple copics.  The thick outline of this set made it much easier to glue than the thin outline above - but I like the look of both.

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This is the back of this butterfly with it face-down.  You can see how I colored this side and added the 2nd black outline.  You can also see that it's shaped and not flat.

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Here it is right-side up.

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This is one of my favorite butterflies.  I enjoyed coloring different colors in the outer circle cut-outs on the wings.

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Below are the smallest and largest butterflies.  The smallest one is about 1 1/2" wide and the large one is about 3 1/2" wide.  They would be a bit wider if they weren't bent and shaped.  The orange area of the large butterfly has two shades of orange.  I thought it made a dramatic effect if I feathered the darker color on top of the light.
I plan to put pearls or other "bling" onto the butterfly bodies after I get them hanging on the mobile.  I'll be sure to glue them on good so they don't fall off!

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Thank you for stopping by!  I hope you have a wonderful & creative weekend!

The butterfly dies that I used are Spellbinders and Memory Box dies.

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