Paper Cutting, Butterflies, and Babies

One of my nieces recently had a baby girl and she had the good sense to decorate the baby's nursery with a butterfly theme. Obviously my niece is not only a wonderful person but she has excellent taste as well. A fine young lady. Anyway, I knew immediately what I wanted to do for her and the baby.

The blurred part has the baby's name cut out as well. I have made it a general policy not to use the real names of my family, friends, or loved ones here in the Jungle (and it's kind of fun making up nicknames for them- we'll call this baby Happy, because she's full of smiles). Even though only minor detective work will lead to my real name there are reasons that the in-laws (as well as Zippy and some others) might not be so easy to track down. I want it that way. I'm not calling out my butterfly visitors as untrustworthy, but the Internet is the cyber wild west and I want to keep my loved ones safe, especially the kids, because one just never knows. Any way.....

I used a shadow box that I got at Michaels, the one with the adjustable depth, and cut two layers of butterflies (three if you count the very back). It was great huge fun! Want to see?

I drew out and cut the original design first and then transferred it, upside down, to the back of the colored scrapbook paper.

Then it was simply a matter of layering the butterflies in the frame, using the different depth options. I used little 3D buttons on the white butterfly to raise it up from the background. The green butterfly is placed on top of the highest layer and is against the glass.

I used a tiny little hole punch that I found at the Dollar Tree to punch little butterflies out of a monochromatically colored pience of scrapbook paper and sprinkled them here and there.

And that's all there was to it! But oh so much fun. I'm guessing there are more kinds of this project in my future. I would love to do one for my Zippy-Gal but she's not a sweet little butterfly sort of kid. Maybe Minecraft, Doctor Who, or her dog. Hmmm...

To wrap up today, we'll do a bit of butterfly archeology. Fossils of butterflies are rare with the earliest butterfly fossils from the early Cretaceous period, about 130 million years ago. The extinct prodryas Persephone butterfly is the oldest known butterfly, discovered at Lake Florissant, Colorado. It is the first fossilized butterfly found in North America. Though about 40 million years old and known from only a single specimen, it is one of a dozen species of butterfly found at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado, run by the National Park Service, and is certainly the finest fossilized specimen in the park. In additon to the colors and patterns, the wing venation is beautifully preserved. It is even possible to see individual scales on areas of the forewing. Its name, Persephone, is that of the daughter of Zeus.

Source

So there you go, my precious butterfly visitors. Thanks for checking in today.