Flower and 3d butterfly blocks

 You can brighten up any room in your home with a display of flower and 3d butterfly blocks.  Use your own variety of colours to fit in with your home colour scheme or choose something funky and original to give your room a cheerful air. Group them together to create a display or use them seperately to add a little colour where you need it.

To make the two sided butterfly, flowers and their blocks you will need:

2 x (12″x12″) double sided scrapbooking papers.

Fiskars cutting mat

Fiskars shapecutter plus

Fiskars Butterflies 2 template

Fiskars Flowers template

Fiskars Squares template or Fiskars craft knife and ruler

Fiskars craft knife

Fiskars drill and 3mm drill bit

5 Barbecue skewers

5 x  (1″x 1″) square wooden blocks

Acrylic paint and brush

Clear drying glue

chalks and applicator (optional)

Before you begin cutting out your paper shapes, cut off the pointed ends of your barbecue skewers with your craft knife and make  each skewer approx 1cm to 2 cm shorter in length than the previous one to vary their height once completed.  Paint all of your Barbecue skewers with acrylic paint in a colour of your choice and leave to one side to dry.

For the double sided butterfly you will need to cut out 1 large, 2 medium and 2 small butterfly wing shapes and two butterfly body shapes as shown above.  If you wish you can then add chalk to the edges of your shapes before you assemble them.

Layer your pieces as shown above,  starting with the largest Butterfly shape and alternating the colours of the other shapes by turning some pieces over,  before you add a little glue to the centres to stick them together.

Place your butterfly shape face down on a flat surface  and apply clear drying adhesive in a line down the centre. Lay a barbecue skewer on top of the glue and allow to dry.

Once the glue is dry adhere your remaining medium butterfly shape on top of the skewer, followed by the other shapes as shown, alternating the paper design as before.

Now cut out 5 (1″x1″) squares of paper to decorate each of your wooden blocks using your Fiskars square template or  ruler and craft knife.  Adhere the four side pieces to the blocks and then drill a hole in the top centre part of the block to hold your mounted butterfly.  Try to ensure that you keep the drill in an upwrite position otherwise your decoration will not stand straight once completed.

Glue a piece of your ready cut paper to the top of the block and then using the pointed end of a barbecue skewer push through the paper into your previously drilled hole.  You can now insert the undecorated end of the skewer from your finished paper butterfly.  If you wish you can add a drop of clear drying glue into the drilled hole before you insert the skewer to make the join more permanent.  Seperate your butterfly wings by gently moving them with your fingers.

To make your flowers you will need 1 flower shape cut from your Flower template for each decoration and also 2 of the small center shapes.  Glue your barbecue skewer to your flower shape as you did with the butterfly and when dry adhere one of the center shapes on top as shown below and then stick the other centre shape to the other side.

Follow the instructions from the butterfly to decorate your block and insert the completed flower.

You don’t have to stop at five decorated blocks for your display you can make as many as you like, why not add more butterflies or make your decorations in other shapes too.  If you don’t want to add them to blocks you could use them to decorate a pot plant indoors by inserting the lower half of the skewer into the soil. 

Especially nice in a pot plant that you intend to share with someone as a gift.  Add further decoration with buttons, glitter, and maybe a bit of bling to glam them up a bit too if you like. 

 Happy Creating

Chris xx