Framed Butterfly Collage

My husband and I are in the process of renovating our fixer-upper that we bought and I’m really excited that our family room is getting so close to being opened up. The thing I’m most looking forward to is decorating it. What better way to decorate than with paper, right?

I’ve noticed that my style has changed a bunch since our first apartment, so I needed a little update. I’m also all about reusing things so I found this 11×14 frame and a mat with an 8×10 opening and got to work on designing this new project.

I’ve noticed a big trend in collages lately and decided that would be a lot of fun to do. The ones I’ve been seeing have been made with hearts or roses but I’ve been in love with The Cutting Files’ Butterflies Set 1 since the moment I saw them and knew this was what I wanted to use them for. There are several ways you can make it and I’ll show you how I made it along with some other things you can do along the way. You’ll be surprised at how quick and easy this project is. I had so much fun putting it together.

Supplies:

• digital scrapbooking software – I used Photoshop Elements
• The Cutting Files Butterfly Set 1 or a shape of your choice, you could even use your favorite punch
• your favorite digital papers – I used A Perfectly Ordinary Day by Sugarplum Paperie and Lauren Grier
• scissors or cutter (I don’t have a cutter and yes, I cut out all 50 butterflies, which means you can too)
• sewing machine and coordinating thread or you can use adhesive
• frame, mat is optional

First thing to do is measure how big your opening is in the mat. I had an 8×10 opening in my 11×14 matted frame.

Open up your scrapbooking software Photoshop Elements and open up an 8.5×11 blank file with an 8×10 mat. Pick out a nice neutral background paper. You could also just keep the background white which is what the collages I’ve seen have used. There was this beautiful word art in the kit so I decided to use that at the bottom.

Pick out one of the butterflies from the cutting files and bring it over to your “layout”. Re-size it to the size you want for the collage and then duplicate it several more times to fill your mat. This is what it looked like when I had them all arranged:

Merge all the butterflies together if you want all your butterflies to be the same paper. If you want them to be assorted papers you can keep the butterflies separate. Move the butterflies over to a new 8.5×11 page. Clip your favorite paper to them and then print it out twice. Here’s what it looks like:

Print out two other papers on the backside of the paper butterflies. The picture below shows the backside of one and the frontside/butterflies on the other page. Also, print out the background paper with the wordart on it. You can also just use plain white cardstock if you want.

Now for the fun part… cutting the butterflies out. I used scissors to cut them. I was surprised that it really didn’t take that long to cut them out. If you’re using a favorite punch then you can skip the previous steps and just print out your papers on each side and punch out your shape on that.

Next, arrange them on the background paper so you know exactly where they go. I chose to alternate the backside paper butterflies on the bottom and then keep the top butterfly the main paper butterflies.

Next you’ll adhere them to the background. I chose to pull out my sewing machine and matching thread and sew them down the center. You can use adhesive if you’d like instead of a sewing machine.

After you’ve finished sewing them all on the paper, fold each of the butterflies in half and spread the wings out. I’ve seen some really pretty embellished butterflies with gems and things like that. You can have some fun decorating your butterflies at this point. I chose to just keep them the way they were.

Lastly, tape it in place on the back of the mat and put it in your frame. Hang it up and enjoy looking at your beautiful project.

If you decide to make a project like this be sure to link me up to it, I’d love to see it.

Heather aka heathergw

Other Articles by heathergw:

• Hydrangea Vase - June 17th, 2011
• Chore And Storytime Dice - May 13th, 2011
• Baby Bingo Cards - April 21st, 2011
• Birdhouses - March 28th, 2011
• Paper Heart Wreath - January 31st, 2011