Paint Chip Butterfly Art

I have been planning on creating a gallery wall in the hallway and am just in the process of collecting enough prints and photos so I can then begin to arrange it.  Last week I finally ordered some family photos but have plans to add other "artsy" items for interest. 

I'm sure you've seen the Paint Chip Butterfly Project all over the Internet.  Here is my version:



First, I made a quick stop to Michael's earlier to grab some more gallery frames (they're 40% off again).  While I was hunting down my gallery frames, I sought out the largest butterfly punch I could find.  Which wasn't on sale, but I could use my coupon to get 40% off.*

While at Home Depot I grabbed 18 complimentary paint chips; 9 in a blue shade, 9 in a green shade.  I found a grouping of colors I liked then just grabbed the 9 consecutive numbers to make sure they were all in the same family.  The house has accent colors of both blue and green and I wasn't sure which I wanted to use yet.  I decided on a 3x3 design, so I knew I would need 9 paint chips (one for each butterfly).

                      Paint Chip Butterfly Project cost breakdown:
                                                         Paint Chip Samples - Free    

      Gallery Frame - $15.59 

   Butterfly Punch - $10.79

Total Project Cost - $26.38

 

You will also need glue, but only a tiny bit and I happen to have this on hand.  While $27 is somewhat pricey for a single project, you can use the butterfly punch for future projects.  I plan on re-using this punch in the near future so I didn't think $11 was a bad deal. 

Once I gathered all the items I opened up the frame to fit the background paper.  I actually used the back of the sample image that was included in the frame.  Mine was white and it was the look I was going for.  If you didn't want a white background you could either spray paint the sample image with the desired color or measure your frame and buy a sheet of paper from the craft store. 

 

 

Next, I punched out one butterfly from each paint sample.

 I then placed them on the paper with the matting around it so I could decide on which color scheme to use and decide what spacing I liked.  Justin and I both preferred the blue accent color for this project.  I then lightly folded (with out creasing) each butterfly and set next to the paper so I could individually glue them to the paper.  (I used Gorilla Wood Glue.  It's what I had on hand - honestly, if I didn't have wood glue, I would've used silicone, or construction adhesive.  Any adhesive should work.  You're only using a tiny spot). 

 

I decided to keep the glass in place so they don't get disturbed.  However, you could choose to go glass-less. 

I'm pretty excited for the final product - and this project took me 20 minutes which was mostly spent trying to line up the butterfly punch perfectly.  I would recommend not getting the two piece punch; it caused some unnecessary frustration that could have been avoided had I chose the one piece punch.

 I think this would also look great with an accent color in the background and white butterflies (which may give it a more modern feel).  And I think a larger variation in colors would be pretty too.  This would also be a great art print for a child's bedroom.

 

Mary

 

*I never buy anything full price at Michael's, and neither should you.  There is a Michael's IPhone app that has updated 40% off coupons so you don't have to clip the newspaper, or in my case, hunt down a newspaper. They can scan the coupon on your phone. No more running to the car for that lost coupon or waiting for an email to download.