Butterfly Bouquet Tutorial by Cheryl Ametewee

butterflies are my favorite thing to work with in my art right now (and if you have ever seen my layouts, you will know this to be true)...i use them on layouts, home decor projects and anything else i can dream up in my mind. i just feel like they add such an amazing touch of whimsy and lightheartedness to any project...which is why i have loved the JBS Butterfly Chipboard from the moment i laid eyes on them. i have more ideas for projects using these butterflies than i could ever dream of completing. :) but for this one, i created this vintage milk jar butterfly bouquet to go on our kitchen table. our kitchen is the least decorated room in our home and only has a few red accents to go with the apartment's cream walls, which made the navy and turquoise accents the perfect punch of color...and the signature jenni bowlin vintage pulls the cream walls in and makes them look less drab.


to create the butterflies i used mini papers to cover 3 of the 4 pieces of chipboard. but because the actual chipboard pieces are larger than the 4x4 mini papers i traced only half and had them overlap a bit in the middle when gluing them down without worrying about how it looked because i knew i was going to add vintage accents to represent the body of the butterflies. (to create the bingo card butterfly i followed all these same steps except the bingo cards are big enough to create an entire butterfly.) next i sanded and inked around the edges of each butterfly before adding the embellishments. for the bodies i used the buttons and pearl flowers in a single line, making sure to do each one in a little different order for uniqueness and visual interest. i also folded and crunched up some of the crepe ribbons under the stickers to give a 3-D textured effect. finally i added the pins as antennas, glue-dotted the kabob sticks to the back and cut and tied the turquoise netting (left over from my turqouise wedding dress!) around the sticks before placing them in the milk-jar.

to create the butterfly made with mostly crepe paper, i traced just the center of the butterfly and glued the cut-out mini-paper onto the chipboard before wrapping the ribbon around the wings of the butterfly. (i love how the edged ribbon gives such great wing-like texture to the bottom halves of the wings!) i then followed the same procedure of creating the body of the butterfly with the pearls and buttons, adding the stick-pin antennas and finally adding the stick and netting.

and finally, before placing the butterflies inside their new home in our boring little kitchen, we took them onto the back patio and used them in a little rainy-day photoshoot. see what i mean? endless butterfly possibilities!
-cheryl :)


Supplies:
Butterfly Chipboard
Mini-Papers: Farmers Wife and Tangerine Dream
Bingo Alpha Tiles: Brown
Crepe Paper Ribbon: Turquoise, Navy & White
Superior Stick Pins: Garnet
Rhinstone Buttons: Red and Clear
Pearl Flowers: Maraschino & Cantaloupe
Other: Red Ink, Turquoise Netting & Vintage Lace

Whimsical and Wonderful! Thanks for the inspiration Cheryl!