Spring Tree (2 of 4): Butterfly & Flower Garland

Butterfly garland was made with the materials from my Pier One note cards: vellum overlay, printed paper envelope, and bright printed flower.

Armed with Googled info, I found a nicely sized butterfly image on a note card in my stash and made a template from a scrap piece of stiff plastic.  (I took a minute to outline the clear template with a black Sharpie so I wouldn't lose it on the table/paper.)

The template is about 2" tall and 2 1/4" wide.

I deconstructed (thanks again, Alton Brown!) both the envelope and the card, gently removing the flower from the vellum, the vellum from its cardstock backing, and undoing the seams of the envelope to lay all the papers flat.

Then I traced as many butterflies as possible from both the vellum and the envelope paper.

One card made several dozen--plenty for the 6-foot garland I wanted.

Using the stretchy clear string that's used for beading, I measured and put a tiny mark every 5".  That Omni Quilting Ruler comes in handy.

You could use any type of string, twine, yarn, strip of fabric or paper, but I wanted the butterflies to look like they're fluttering around the tree unattached.

Time to attach the butterflies to the stretchy string.  I used a tiny dab of hot glue to sandwich the string between 2 butterfly shapes.  If the shapes are folded before gluing, the little critter looks like it's flitting around!  I attached one complete butterfly (2 shapes) on every other mark (every 10") on the string.

Since this is totally a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants process, I studied the garland for a day or so and decided it needed "something else."  I searched my trusty Hobby Lobby for some pretty printed vellum to make more flowers similar to the one from the card, but came home empty-handed.  So back to Pier One for more of the note cards.  They're still "free" since I used my store credit.

Here's how I got the most mileage (and flowers) for my garland:

1.  Remove the flower from the vellum

2.  Remove the button from the flower
(this flower has 2 layers of 7 petals each)



3.  Trace a circle ~ half the size of the flower 



4.  Cut both layers of petals along the tracing



5.  Now there are 2 sets of 7 daisy petals to make new flowers!

6.  Plus, when gently pulled apart, there are 2 little flat-petalled flowers

 That makes four small flowers from each original note card flower.

Thanks to the hot glue gun,

each flower got a pink button from Mama's button box

and found its way onto the garland.

See what you think . . .



button-centered flowers and vellum butterflies float on the Spring Tree