Butterflies and DIY

My half of the pendant

For some time I have been planning to share some of my DIY projects with you, some of the things I do while watching TV. Here is the first of them. 

Butterflies are beautiful creatures. For me they symbolize transformation and inspiration. They also remind me of my best friend who loves butterflies. For this reason they remind me of friendship as well.  I even designed a butterfly-friend-pendant for her birthday once. On the picture to the right is my half, the other one is with her.

For some time I collected ideas in my head for a new project. On Pinterest and in some furniture stores I saw picture frames with cut out hearts in it in a pattern. The idea to make a 3D picture was set, but I did not want to make it with hearts as well so I found the idea of doing it with butterflies.

I put my 3D-frame-ideas into action and this was the result:

The frame is the squared RIBBA frame from IKEA. I drew the outline of butterflies in Illustrator and arranged them in a pattern. After printing the template and passing it to the back of the white cardboard I used a craft knife to cut the butterfly wings. To add a little color I put a blue sheet of paper behind the cardboard and as an accent I cut out two little butterflies in the same blue and glued it to the passe-partout.

At first I did not know where to hang it. But since we are holding out bedroom in a similar blue I decided to do two more of these and hang it over our bed. I did one with the butterflies in the same pattern, only mirrored. For the middle frame I wanted something a little bit different. Here are the three finished frames:

I confess that the boy with the catcher was my boyfriend's idea. When he first mentioned it I waved it aside. It seemed a little bit to cruel. But after a while I thought it could also be cute. All three frames are now hanging over our bed.