3D Monarch Butterfly from the Colorado Craft Company

Hi Friends! I am so excited to share this Monarch Butterfly shaped card from Colorado Craft Company! It's another very large scale stamp design, so I thought it would be really fun to turn it into a shaped card. I was going to do this with the giant slice of rainbow birthday cake from my earlier post, but settled on this butterfly instead.

The original image has a key cleverly worked in the middle of the butterfly. Since I was making a shaped card that I wanted to be able to stand on the wings, I selectively inked the stamp so that the bottom of the key did not stamp, especially where it overlapped the lower left wing.

Then I went back with a felt tipped pen and filled in the missing pattern on the butterfly wing (lower left). You can see where I wasn't perfect, and there's a slight horizontal line from the key. But now we just have the butterfly remaining, without the key.

I repeated these steps to get a second butterfly. Would you like to see it stand?!

Ta-da!! The body is adhered together, but since the wings are free, I scored and bent them so it looks like the butterfly is flapping its wings! This also allows the butterfly to stand on its own.

The center body of the butterfly needed some modification, since it used to be a key and all : ) I got lucky, and the key detail on the top of where I trimmed it off kind of looks like a head with two antenna (what are the chances?!) The rings around the key also look like part of the body. I added some random markings with a white gel pen, and think it looks close enough to a body (or at least doesn't stand out that it's really part of a key).

Having the two sets of wings really gives this butterfly a ton of dimension. My favorite kind ... the dimension that easily folds flat for mailing and storage!

I watercolored each section one-by-one. Once I finished painting one section, I watercolored the mirror section on the other side of the butterfly so I'd get the colors pretty close. I really like having the second layer's colors peeking through. It looks 3D, even when the butterfly is laying down flat.

I really had a ton of fun putting this 3D butterfly together! I currently have him sitting on my desk, so I can enjoy him before he flies off to another garden.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
-Kelly

Supplies Used (Affiliate links, thanks so much for your support of my projects and blog!)

36 Pan Set, Altenew Watercolor Paint Uni-ball Impact Gel Pen, White Her Own Wings, Colorado Craft Company Clear Stamps Black Jack, Catherine Pooler Ink Pad