Framed Book Butterflies in the Dreaming Room

Well, you know me...always trying to find the next project. Remember the original teaser picture from the butterfly branches in the Dreaming Room? Remember how I said I was keeping the pages with the butterflies cut out of them as well as the butterflies themselves? Well, here's the result:

As with all my posts, please click image to see much larger! :)

A little closer view:

And here's what I did. I took the page with cut out butterflies, 3 a piece, used for the branch project. I then took a book I have on hand, Alphabets and Ornaments, a book full of medieval and period templates. (A similar book can be found at any library I'm sure) I photocopied three pages that had ornate designs I thought would work well for the project.


I then took watered down acrylic paint, and began painting the photocopied page with colors to mimic butterfly wings. I would continuously lay the template book page down on top of the photocopy to make sure the design was working for my "butterfly." When all three butterfly shapes were painted/filled, I glued the two sheets together, and trimmed off any excess from the photocopy that showed around the book page.


The use of the medieval design adds patterns as well as color, and helps add to the butterfly "look" while also continuing the theme of words and history.

I then bought three cheapie ($3) frames at Walmart that just happened to have mats included in a shade similar to the antiqued page. I laid the page down on top of the matting, but my original plan was to find scrapbook paper that would look good to fill the rest of the frame, and I'm sure that would work too.


For the two smaller frames, I took a book page from the same book (The Rose and the Thorn..a donated book bought for a quarter at the library. All about the Tudors and full of wonderful romantic words) and cut out images I liked from a spare copy of Brian Froud and Alan Lee's Faeries I picked up at a yard sale years ago (paperback copy with a binding falling apart, otherwise I wouldn't dare cut it apart). I placed the cut images in front of the book pages, and sandwiched both behind the matting of, again, a $3 Walmart frame. I made sure some of the cut image was layered in front of the matting for a quirky 3-d effect.


And there you have it! It was a fun little project that could be easily done using similar materials. The book was a quarter at the library, the photocopies were $.10 a piece at the library, and the frames were $3 a piece. So...yeah...not exactly a bank breaker.

Here are the other three frames:





Oh, and for the record, I used the newspaper template method to hang these 5 frames on the wall. I had heard of this method from Young House Love, but never tried it, and let me tell you, when you're trying to arrange things symmetrically or place a grouping in an aesthetically pleasing way on the wall, it is a total sanity saver. Highly recommended.

(To summarize, it basically means that you trace templates of your frames onto sheets of newspaper, cut them out, and add tape to the backs, so you can move them around the wall until you're pleased with their location. You can then X on the newspaper where you need to hammer your nail, and just tear the paper away when you're ready to hang the pictures)