Making butterfly shadow boxes
As I mentioned last week, i’ve been working on a few little craft projects for Mackenzee’s room. The first one is a butterfly shadow box. I was inspired by a few images:
Source: ebay.com.au via Michelle on Pinterest
Source: kimboscrafts.blogspot.com via Michelle on Pinterest
I think of myself as a crafty sort of person (although I don’t own a sewing machine) so I decided to give it a go myself. Here is how I went about it:
1. Start with a cutting board, stencil of butterfly, various coloured paper, some white card to stick butterflies to, shadow box frame, glue gun and a cutting tool.
2. Put the stencil over the paper and cut out your butterfly (make sure the cutting board is underneath!). I used a Fiskars cutter that does shapes and freehand…apparently it cuts any shape!
3. Remove your shape and fold it in half
4. Put a little bit of glue on the bottom of your butterfly. You might need to work fast at this point as my glue kept going hard before I got it on the card!
5. Then stick it to the card so the wings are raised. Now I should tell you that a fair bit of planning goes into figuring out where to stick it. I googled “grid paper” and printed off a grid, taped it to a window then put my white card over the grid paper so I could see the grid through it. With a pencil I put a dot where I wanted the butterflies to go so that they were going to be spaced evenly. Once you have marked out your paper, you might also want to double check it inside the frame to see how they will look.
6. Repeat, repeat and keep repeating until you have enough butterflies. Depends on the size of your butterfly and frame as to how many you should do. As you saw from my inspiration photos, you can do small and have lots of them or do larger like mine. It will eventually look something like this (unless you really mucked it up which is near impossible to do!)
7. Get your frame. I just used the Ribba frame from Ikea. They come in all sizes and colours…and they are cheap as chips! It’s just a matter of putting this inside the frame and…
8. Dah dah…job is done!
9. Seeming you had so much fun doing this and it was sooo easy to do, why not do two!
So give it a go youself and let me know how you went 
I’ve got another little project in the pipeline, hopefully I can share that one soon.
Have fun!
Michelle
Oh my gosh!! That looks amazing! I wanted to make something like that but was super intimidated! I will have to try that soon!!
Jami it is sooo easy, you would love it! It doesn’t take long to do at all, especially with the little cutting tool. I only discovered it AFTER I handcut 64 butterflies for my other project I am working on.
OMGoodness how gorgeous do the shadow boxes look……the choice of material is amazing we are in awe of your create talent
Mac Kenzie is soooo blessed x
I need help, am trying to track down some shadow boxes so as I can make some but can’t seem to find any. I’ve looked on the IKEA website and still can’t find any.
The ones I used are from Ikea – they are Ribba frames and come in various colours and sizes. I used the square ones which are about 25cm x 25cm. I just bought two last weekend as I made another set of butterfly shadow boxes for my friend’s little girl who turns one today!