Twine Butterflies

Hi there! It's Stephanie, back with another sunshine-spring time card to share :) When I saw Monika's post back in February with those cute twine hearts I was immediately inspired. I thought, how cool would it be to make other shapes- like butterflies. So, I had to give it a try.

To make the butterflies stiff I used the recipe Monika found:
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup water
-mix and heat in a small saucepan until it becomes translucent & let it cool before using.

For the shapes, I decided to "wing" it. No cookie cutters, just me, the gluey concoction, & a sheet of parchment paper. My first butterfly was the carribbean teal one. I coated the twine in the glue & wound the wings up in my hand. This was difficult & I'm really surprised it turned out. I tried it a few more times & had to move on to a different method. I coated a longer strip of twine (about 2 feet) and laid it on the parchment paper in figure eight style, just winding it around gently to form the wings. This was much better.
Once I had my butterflies formed, I moved them over to a little triangle tent I made with foil so the wings would dry bent.

Once dry, they are pretty stiff. The wings can still be moved, just be gentle. I think the glue makes the twine colors even bolder.

I created a sunshine & sky scene on the card using cardstock cut outs & I adhered the butterflies using Glue Dots.

Since the butterflies have extra dimension compared to most embellishments, I knew a normal envelope wouldn't be ideal to house this card. The card itself is A2 size- 4.25x5.5" I have these cute glassine bags that I recently got and they turned out to be the perfect size to hold this card without smashing the butterflies. These bags are slightly larger than the card at 4.75x6.75"

I decorated the bag by simply adding 2 strips of ribbon with double stick tape. I folded the bag over & punched a small 1/8" hole on each side. I used a needle to string the lilac twine through.

To finish it off, I tied the bag shut & clipped a little "2:u, ♥:me" (hand drawn with white pen) tag on with a mini clothespin. I also added one more butterfly to the outside of the bag.
Above is a few close ups of the details.

I hope you enjoyed today's card and give these techniques a try! Imagine all that you can do with these butterflies (or other shapes you come up with!)- you could make larger ones to hang from a baby mobile, use them as gift embellishments, on scrapbook pages- the possiblities are endless!

Come visit me at my daily blog- I create with twine often!

Have a great day!

Stephanie

Supplies:

The Twinery baker's twine in: Lemondrop, Peapod, Carribbean, Pink Sorbet, Purple

Cardstock: DCWV (aqua, green); Bazzil (yellow); Recollections (kraft, white)

Ribbon: American Crafts (blue); Bo Bunny (yellow)

Others: Elle's Studio (thank you sentiment); Hobby Lobby (mini clothespin); Uni-Ball Signo Gel Pen in white; AnnabelGray on Etsy (glassine bag); Creative Chaos blog (sun svg file); SCAL2 (clouds & scallops); Cuttlebug (mini tag diecut)