FRAMED BUTTERFLY

I hope you got your hands on the lovely Butterfly Designer Series Paper that was available as one of the freebies for spending $50 during Sale-A-Bration, which ended March 31. It is a pack of paper I know I will be hoarding for a long time because of its sheer loveliness.

One of the sheets had beautiful butterflies in a couple of sizes and varying combos of colors that were perfect for fussy cutting. I cut up one entire sheet of the flutter-bys. When I had a huge stack of butterflies all fussy cut, I wondered what I would do with such a flock of the pretty winged flowers.

Then it hit me! I would share all these little lovelies with my Stamp-In Workshop girls. Some of them don't like fussy cutting at all, so I knew they would appreciate having these pre-cut.

It took some fussing around with scraps of paper to get my "frame" just the right size to accommodate one of the smaller butterflies mounted on a circle and scalloped circle. But, finally I got the dimensions all worked out.

The biggest problem I encountered in planning this project for a workshop is that the butterflies and the gingham check paper (page 35 in the Occasions Catalog) came in a variety of colors. So, I was forced to have the girls make some decisions and do some cutting once their decisions were made.

First on the to-do list was to choose a butterfly, then a color of the gingham paper to coordinate, and finally the cardstock that matches whichever gingham print was chosen. Once everything was chosen, the gingham and the cardstock had to be cut to the proper sizes. 

It is always good when I can have all of this cutting done prior to a workshop. But, in this case, each girl could make their card completely unique. Which is always nice.

Looking at the photo below, you can see that, when the card is lying down flat, it has LOTS of dimension. Nice! To mail the card, however, it collapses completely flat.

The final card is 4 1/4" square, which fits nicely inside an A2 envelope. Always a plus.

Now, how about a tutorial on how to make a card like this? If you don't have the DSP, you can always use the Butterfly Gala set to stamp, color and punch your own butterfly. This set can also be found on page 35 of the Occasions Catalog.

SUPPLIES:

Butterfly Designer Series Paper or stamped/colored/punched butterflies

Gingham Gala Designer Series Paper (page 35, Occasions Catalog)

Whisper White cardstock

Black cardstock

Coordinating colors of cardstock

Bone Folder

Big Shot

Stampin' Dimensionals

Layering Circles Framelits (page 218, Annual Catalog)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Choose a precut butterfly (or create one of your own). 

Next choose a piece of the Gingham Gala paper that matches your butterfly. Cut the gingham paper to 4" square. Fold the paper in half, making a quick crease in the center only with your fingers. Unfold the paper, and repeat in the other direction. You want just a small folded cross in the center of the piece. Take a piercing tool and make a small hole where the lines intersect so you have the exact center of the paper. The hole you made will be covered, so don't worry.

Bend one of the corners to the pierced hole, and when it's lined up, crease and use the bone folder to crisp this fold. Repeat with all four corners,  matching up the edges as perfectly as possible. Once all four corners are folded to the center, take one of the corners and bend it backwards over the outside folded edge so you have about a 1/2" "frame" and the point sticks beyond the first edge. Crease this with a bone folder. Follow with the remaining three corners, making sure your "frame" is even all the way around.

Mount this folded frame onto a 3" square of black cardstock.

Fold a 4 1/4" x 8 1/2" piece of Whisper White cardstock in half, creasing it well with a bone folder.

Add a 4" square piece of coordinating cardstock to the card base.

Center the framed piece onto this.

Cut a 1 3/8" circle in coordinating cardstock and mount this to a slightly larger black scalloped circle.

Add adhesive only to the butterfly body and attach it to the center of the circle. You can bend the wings up slightly so it looks like the butterfly is in flight.

With a Stampin' Dimensional, add the butterfly on circle to the center opening of the frame.

Fluttery

Smiles.