The Butterfly Project II

Brace yourselves girls... this is gonna be a long winded-one (wait... who said that???).  I am not only sharing the butterfly project pictured here... I am also sharing the process of how it all came together (plus I have a download and print freebie at the bottom too).  So it's an action packed post filled with drama, excitement and free stuff.  All we need are cupcakes and we'll be set!

Supplies for this project:
- 12 butter cream iced vanilla cupcakes (you'll need them for fortification... cupcakes just make craft projects go smoother)
- Card stock paper in your choice of colors (if you don't have card stock that's ok...  I used a mix of regular paper and card stock)

- 1/4 inch thick cork tile (big enough to be a backing for your craft ring.  I used a 12 inch ring so a 12 inch tile worked perfectly).  You can get cork tiles at arts and craft stores and office supply stores as well.
- Floral Craft Ring (seen HERE - I got mine at Michaels in the floral section - which by the way is where the inspiration for this project came from.  You can see the project that started it all HERE!)
- Craft paint (I really like the "Folk Art" brand but I also use Making Memories and CRAFT paints as well)
- 3D Foam dots, squares, rolling glue tape, etc...  if it makes stuff stick together and has some dimension - use it)
- Butterfly punches (I used 3 Martha Stewart Punches 2 of which can be seen HERE and HERE (I am so glad they are FINALLY available on line)... and I also used a Sizzix Butterfly Die from Stampin' Up for the larger butterflies).  I could not find the monarch Martha Stew. punch on line but I got mine at Michaels (and I would not be surprised if Walmart had it as well).

- Foam brush, sponge, or paint brush
- Piece of cardboard or art board large enough to be the backing behind the whole thing
- Super strong glue - I used E6000 (it's smelly stuff but it works like a pack of rabid sweaty man-muscles.... mmm man-muscles)
- Ribbon (wide enough to cover up the uglies on the side of your ring)

See...  that's not so bad right?  I kinda consider this a stash buster project.  The only thing I had to go out and get was the craft ring and that only cost me $1.99.  Of course I then proceeded to purchase 6 of them in all 3 sizes cause I got way over excited thinking about all the cool things I was gonna do with them - but I'll save those ideas for another time!

Let's get started shall we?!?
If you are OCD like me you'll need to lay out all your stuff first in order to get your crafty fanny organized.  DogChops usually supervises this phase of the projects so things don't get too uptight in the craft room (she's giving me the evil eyeball here cause I was turning all of the bottles around and moving things out of the way so I could photograph them).

4 hours later...
Once you have all of your butterflies punched out (keep in mind that I punched out enough butterflies for 30 people to make this project 4 times over)...  you will want to take a little break and have a cupcake.

Getting your foundation started...
I used a pen to trace around the floral craft ring onto the cork tile and cardboard.  I then used my rotary cutter to cut the shape out (you could use an x-acto knife too).  I cut just a little inside the line so I would be sure that the ring would completely cover the cork tile and cardboard once it was placed over it.

I glued the cork tile and cardboard together using E6000 glue and then set them aside to dry (while they were drying I had another cupcake).

I then busted out my paints and got together some cardboard scraps that I could paint on so I could play around with different color combinations and effects.  I knew I did not want something plain and flat and I also wanted to make sure I had enough of a contrast as a backdrop for the butterflies (which were gonna be teal).

The process of getting the colors nailed down pretty much took me an entire evening (I ran out of cupcakes and had to get more for the next day).  I agonize over color choices (you guys are already well aware of me and my color picking-ickings) so I thought it would be fun to share that whole process so you can see what a goof I am.

First I tried a red background with teal twisty swirls over the top.

The butterflies got lost on the teal.

Then I tried a teal background with red twisty swirls over the top.
The butterflies got lost on the red this time.

Then I went hog wild and tried orange and teal.
hmmmm
Let's keep this one just between us girls ok?
I'll never tell if you won't.

So guess what color I ended up with...

Go ahead. Guess.

BEIGE!

Hello?

Guys?

Anyone out there?

**chirp chirp**

**chirp chirp**

**chirp chirp**

I am KIDDING!  Seriously.  I went with white instead.  hahahaha.  You still love me anyway right?

I painted the base solid white (2 coats) and then did the twisty swirls over the top in pearlized white.  It looks pretty good as the backdrop for all those lovely butterflies.  Trust Lolly.

I used Folk Art (by Plaid) Wicker White (901) and Metallic Pearl White (659).  They are just your basic acrylic paints and they dry really really fast (but not so fast that you don't have time for a bite or three of cupcake of course)!

To get the whole twisty swirls effect over the top you are going to need to get a sponge and squeeze the ends to a point (pictured here).  I used this little sea sponge that I have had for decades and it works pretty good.  You basically just dunk, dab and swirl.  Repeat after me.  Dunk. Dab. Swirl.  Keep doing that over the entire surface (smoothing the drippy edges as you go) and you will have a pretty nice swirly effect going.

Once you have your paints applied (and they are good and dry)...it's time to figure out how you are going to lay out your butterflies (don't forget to eat a cupcake).

I tend to punch way more than I am actually going to use because I like to have lots of choices (in case I decide to repeat a few several times or just stick with one or two basics).  You don't have to do this.  You can simply punch what you need and lay them out as you are going along.

I picked through my entire paper stash and plucked out every single piece that was in the teal family.  I never knew I had so much teal paper.  It's a little spooky to be honest.

I actually ended up doing two projects for this post (in case you are wondering why things are about to suddenly start changing on you).  I lost 98% of my pictures so I had to do another project in a rush!  I was seriously freaking out (which is when I took a little break and ...had my 6th cupcake).

Lay all of your butterflies about and get them kinda loosely placed where you think you might want them (they never stay there but a girl can dream right?).

Break out the 3D adhesives...
Start sticking them down on your painted ring kinda in the middle of the project base (which is a circle so just pick a side and start there).  I work my way up and down from the initial one as I go (that helps to keep things more fluid).  Basically...  one butterfly on top and then another one on the bottom.  Keep that up and it will look a little better than if you had started at the top and worked your way down (just trust me cause I tried it this way at first and it was not as nice).

I alternate between gluing them flat to the base and stacking them with foam squares and dots between 1 - 2 foam pieces high.  I was even sticking smaller butterflies on top of the wings of the larger ones to help keep things interesting.

There is nothing scientific about this process at all (unless you are trying to figure out how many calories you are burning vs the ratio of cupcakes you have eaten (which you are prolly not going to want to know anyway so it's best to just keep on gluing butterflies down and have another cupcake).

Once you have them all glued down to the ring down you are going to want to glue the ring to the cork/cardboard base you made earlier.  It should be dry enough at this point.  I again used E6000 stinky super glue.  Just remember not to glop it on too thick or it will squeeze through the sides and show up on your cork board face (I speak from experience here ladies).

Excited yet???
I was ready to hang this puppy up on the wall at this point and then I noticed that it had some rather ugly sides.  So I decided that we needed a nice ribbon border to help cover up the uglies.

It took me a few tries to get just the right width of ribbon (that actually matched with my projects).

When you have your ribbon picked out (go with too short rather than too tall) you will want to glue it to the sides a small section at a time (rolling the cork board as you go but no to the point that you moosh you butterflies that are poking out the sides).  It's not going to be perfect but that's ok.  It's FAR better than the ugly sides you have going on now.  Trust Lolly.  I used my hot glue gun on the first one and E6000 on the second one.  The hot glue gun made things too lumpy for my taste.

See those little buttons to cover peeping there... (I warned you this was a long post didn't I).
I used my beloved buttons to cover to cover up the holes in the floral craft ring.  You can read a post I did on how to make them HERE (it's pretty old so watch your step (we are talking my second post EVER folks.  Old. Potatoes.)).

I left the shank on the ones I used to cover up the holes in the ring and then I made another 6 into matching thumb tacks for the cork board part of it.  I had some teal fabric that matched with the butterflies perfectly!

So there you have it!
If you are me and you lost your pictures you now have TWO butterfly cork boards.  You can give one away and keep the other one (the all teal one went to MomChops and the teal and brown one is going to I dunno who...YET).  That's pretty nice.

I'll have to share how to get the ribbon hanger on the back in another post.  I ran out of daylight to take all of those pics again and it's def worth sharing as it took me several tries to get the placement right so the little fella did not hang all wobbly!!

So what about the download and print freebie Lolly?
I cobbled together a little butterfly note card from a stock butterfly and my little swirly party invites from Cupcake Week.  You can see them in the pic way way up at the top (and you can download them below).

So lastly...  thanks sooooo much for all of your lovely and thoughtful suggestions on my bathroom color conundrum.  I have a decision made and I'll be sharing the results SOON (and not it's not boring snoring...  I swears)!

...and lastly (for real this time).  I was contacted by a publisher to do a review of a cute little cookbook that just came out.  They sent me 4 copies to giveaway so we'll be doing that Wednesday!  Keep your eyeballs peeled!

The third butterfly project will be shared next Monday (along with a mega giveaway)!  I hope you'll be back!

More hugs than you can stand!

P.S. Speaking of giveaways... head on over to Mod Podge Rocks cause Amy's having a killer giveaway (this is your chance to get your mitts on loads of awesome Mod Podge that you've never tried and always wanted to).  Tell her Lolly sent ya and beat those hundreds of other people out of the way of that Mod Podge girls!!!  GO GO GO!

P.S.S.T.  In case you are wondering what the first butterfly project was...  you can check it out HERE.  It almost made me famous.  Almost.