Fly Away

The week has been full of projects for CHA.  Three have gone out in the mail and three more need to be created.  Booth projects are happening too.  Cutting, sawing, gluing and dying (but I can't tell you what).  I've even been to Kinko's 3 times this week and that might be a record for me!  I've got my husbands full attention for 3 more days before school starts again so he is helping me with new shelves for the booth, putting crown molding up in our bedroom and has painted a table that needed some new life breathed into it.  I love project mode!

Totally inspired yesterday by the colored butterfly rubbings that were sitting on my desk.  Since this is product that 7gypsies currently carries I figured it is no problem sharing before the trade show.

So lets start with the dome.  I found this a long time ago at an antique mall in Ft Worth, TX.  It's small, about 7 1/2" high and 5" across the base.

 I painted the base black.

Once dry, I sanded the edges and added a bit of ink.

The butterflies-

You will need some heavy plastic.   I used the back of some Ideology packaging, works perfectly.

Cut out a few butterflies from the 7gypsies rubbing sheet.  

I cut 3 butterflies, one large, one medium and one small.

Rub onto the plastic...

and cut out.

You will need use a heavy wire to help the butterflies stand up.  I used 24 gauge.

So how do you add the wire?   On the small and medium size I was able to use paper tape to hold the wire in place.  On the large Monarch, the body is very small so I secured the wire with E6000 glue.  Once dry, I added the paper tape, then cut away the excess.

Front

Back

Here's the part when my buddy comes into the workroom from the backyard.  One of the best things about living in California in January is being able to run in the sprinklers and eat your lunch outside.  I admit I wish I was out there with him.

The Base:
The only Styrofoam I had was a Styrofoam ball, but I needed to make it work.  So I cut the ball in half which fit the base of dome perfectly.  I sewed a linen patch to the 2 layers of dyed muslin, then made some primitive stitches with dark green embroidery floss.  I used Archival Ink in black to stamp the word, fly.

I wrapped the edge of the base with dyed stretchy elastic and secured the end with an old straight pin.

Time to add the butterflies.

I just did a simple configuration with the largest being at the back and smallest at the front.  Once I was done I added a 7gypsies vintage pin.  I love these big pins!

Then a bit of natural elements and a vintage flower secured with an old straight pin.

Here is the finished piece sans dome since it so hard to photograph once the glass is added.

....And 35 photos and three different rooms later I finally got one that I'm not too embarrassed to post.

I decided to create another version of the dome using the same butterflies.  This time I bent the bottom of the wire about an 1" or so then used a bit of glue to keep it in place.  I also added a foam square between the butterfly and the button card.

 I definitely could cut the foam square down, but you get the drift, right?

This time I used tiny books (another collection of mine...tiny black leather books), a flower frog, a Photobooth picture from Darkroom Door, a cool vintage metal button from 1942 and a vintage button card.

Oh, I really like them both.  But only one can appear in the booth...hope there are a few of you out there that are attending CHA and can stop by and see which one I bring!

cheers!
paula

PS) Did anyone watch Project Runway All Stars last night?  Debbie and I are Project Runway Super Fans.  We love watching the episodes more than once and we even discuss them on the phone the day after it airs!  I am so excited to have Project Runway on again so soon after the final episode, all be it sans Tim Gunn.  But I can deal with that just to see all the designing.  I was only sad to see that Suede is not an All Star because I thought it was hilarious when he would refer to himself in the 3rd person..."Suede doesn't like that" or "Suede doesn't think that is funny".  We got so many one liners from that season!