Butterfly Shadowbox Frame

Wish I could say this was my original idea, but, it's not.  I saw something similar on a Facebook page and adapted Toni Arthur's idea for a frame I had on hand.

Our local Dollar General Store had these framed pieces of "art" for only $6.00.  I liked the scroll work in the corners and since the frame sits about 3/4" from the picture, I took it apart and treated it as a shadowbox.

I covered the art work with a piece of pretty Tim Holtz paper using my ATG gun and double sided tape.  The branch was clipped from a tree in our front yard.  It had to be trimmed a bit to position it just where I wanted it inside the frame.

 Once I was happy with where it was situated, I used an awl and punched a hole on either side of the branch and threaded some paddle wire through the holes to secure the branch in place.

Twisting the wire on the back to keep it in place made me remember all those toys the grandkids opened at Christmas.  One year, it took at least 10 minutes to get a Barbie doll and all her accessories off the cardboard backing---while an excited 5 year old was bouncing up and down in anticipation of playing with it!

The pink pieces of paper indicate where the wires were attached.

The butterflies were punched from vellum and mounted on a matching punch out of white cardstock. I used some glue dots and some pop up glue dots to attache the white cardstock punchouts onto the background and vellum adhesive on the overlays.   The wires were covered by three of the butterflies. 

I used a Cuttlebug die and folder, Martha Stewart punch and an EK Success punch for the butterflies..

This was made for my main bathroom but I have a feeling when my friend, Leonna, sees it, she'll wind up owning it.  She loves butterflies more than I do!