YAH: 3D Butterfly Art

So now that our family Christmas exchange is over, I can finally share what I made. As I mentioned in a previous post, for the past few years each member of my family makes a gift for the exchange. Each person can choose a gift to open or steal a gift someone has already opened. I'm amazed each year at how creative everyone is! I got the idea for my gift from LollyChops. She gives a very good tutorial, so you might want to check it out. I did almost everything the same except I used a real picture instead of one from a magazine. A few years ago I took this picture while standing on my deck after a thunderstorm:

I didn't edit or enhance this picture at all, other than using the "sunset" mode on my camera. And you know what I like about this picture? When you turn it upside down, it looks like you are hovering above another planet, looking out over the horizon.

How cool is that? Anyway, I printed out this picture as an 8x10. Then I cut it into roughly 1 - 1 1/2 inch strips. I used 2 different butterfly punches for this project. Both are Martha Stewart, and both were bought with a 40% off coupon at Michaels.

So I punched out a bunch of butterflies (holding the punches upside down so I could see exactly what part of the picture I was using).

I laid the butterflies out on a piece of paper and tried keeping them in the same order as the original picture.

To get the 3D effect, I used glue dots and self-adhesive foam pieces.

Each kind was a different thickness. I also used a frame with a 3D mat board. I actually worked with the mat board on so I would know my boundaries and be able to overlap them with a butterfly or two. I just taped a piece of white card stock behind it. Because the butterflies are pretty small, most of the foam pieces had to be cut up.

I had no real plan, other than having the majority of the butterflies headed in the same direction, with a few that "broke free" from the group. I just kept going until I was happy with it.

Oh, I should point out that the opening for the frame I used was 5x7. Because I was overlapping the butterflies, I needed it to be smaller than the picture originally was. If you used 8x10, you might not have enough butterflies to fill it up. I got the frame at Michaels, again with a 40% off coupon!

It's kind of hard to tell it's 3D from these pictures. Sorry.

I've made a few of these to give away as gifts over the years and I've always included a wallet-sized picture of the sunset on the back of the frame.

I bought a seahorse punch recently (that has 2 different sizes on it) and I think I will try making one of these with that. I just need to take a picture that has lots of blues and purples in it. I can already see it in my head!

**Linking up to Wow Me Wednesday!**