DIY: A Rainbow of Butterflies

\When you start to look for it, inspiration is everywhere. Like when I was reading Winnie the Pooh to the kids and a drawing of butterflies suddenly brought to mind a pretty paper rainbow of the fluttery creatures. As soon as the kids took a nap, I got to work and came up with this embellishment, which I saved forever to put on a page for the month of April.

I adore it so much and decided it couldn't be tucked away in the pages of a scrapbook - why not make one to hang on the wall as well? And photograph the process so you can make one too! After all, I can't be the only one who loves butterflies and rainbows.

So to begin, you'll need..

Supplies:
plain black frame (12x12)
cutting mat
circle cutting template
craft knife
butterfly punch
2 sheets white card stock
5 solid color card stock papers - red, orange, yellow, green, blue
5 patterned papers - red, orange, yellow, green, blue
3 cloud die cuts (or make your own freehand)
glue
dimensional foam adhesive
old newspaper or cardboard

Instructions:
1. Cut a 5.5" circle from one sheet of the white card stock.
2. Using your solid red paper, use your template to cut a 4.5" circle and without moving the papers, cut a  5.5" circle around the smaller one. You will end up with 2 circles that look like this:

3. Now cut the remaining solid colored papers as above. The finished sizes should be red - 5.5, orange - 4.5, yellow - 3.5, green - 2.5, blue 1.5.

4. Lay down some old newspaper or cardboard to protect your work surface, then spray or spread glue over the first white circle. Now adhere the red circle around the white card stock and fill in the center with the remaining colored circles to make the rainbow.

5. Using a piece of even scrap paper, cut the rainbow in half a little below the center. Then cut out the remaining white center of your half rainbow. The outlines of my circle are a bit uneven, but that's okay - we will cover it up in the next step.

6. Next we punch out the butterflies from the patterned paper. I used 12 red, 9 orange, 7 yellow, 5 green and 3 blue. You may need more of less, depending on the placement. Bend them in half so they appear to be fluttering ;)

7. Arrange the butterflies on the rainbow starting with red and working toward the center. On each color layer, I raised one butterfly above the pack with the dimensional foam adhesive. The inside of foam letter stickers that you normally throw away works for this.

8. Next glue the other piece of white card stock to the cardboard back piece of your frame. Glue it to the side you want showing through the frame.

9. Now figure out the placement of the rainbow and clouds on the background paper. Put one piece of dimensional adhesive behind two of the clouds and adhere them to the background. Double up the adhesive behind the rainbow and glue that down so it is higher than the clouds. Stick the third cloud behind the right side of the rainbow with a single adhesive.

10. Pop your picture into the frame - I had to remove the glass because it was too tall. If you'd like, add a few extra butterflies flying down towards the rainbow and maybe even some inspirational words.

11. Hang and admire!

 Supplies: DCWV cardstock,  MME & October Afternoon patterned paper, Martha Stewart butterfly punch and circle cutter, Dear Lizzy for AC rub-on

If you make one, I'd love to see! Please post a link to your creation in the comments or if you have any ideas on what to do with the leftover cutouts.

Goodnight!