DIY Paper Butterfly Heart Canvas & Wall Art Tutorial – Made with a Cricut!

[videojs youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ocic16PMfA”]
Get the free butterfly SVG cut files/patterns at https://jennifermaker.com/paper-butterfly-canvas-wall-art-heart/

Learn how to make an easy paper butterfly heart canvas or wall art, complete with four free butterfly patterns for you to use.

MATERIALS (contains my affiliate links):

• Four sheets of 8.5″ x 11″ paper (I used four sheets of this Seafoam Green paper at https://amzn.to/2MM4eJw )
• (Optional) 1 sheet of 12″ x 12″ paper, any color, to create the heart template
• A canvas, board, or sign (I used a 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas on a frame at. https://amzn.to/2UHnUkI )
• Tacky glue at https://amzn.to/2GnDnSU )
• A way to cut your cardstock (I used the amazing Cricut)
• My free SVG/DXF/PDF cut files/patterns (available in my free resource library—get the password at https://jennifermaker.com/library )

UPDATES/CHANGES: Check for any updates, changes, or additional videos for this project at https://jennifermaker.com/updates

There’s just something about butterflies I love. They spend most of their time being ordinary caterpillars, crawling about, chained to the ground like most of us. Then something amazing happens. They undergo the most startling transformation from a creepy crawly into a glorious explosion of flying color, spreading their wings and soaring high. It’s really something special, and underscores the miraculous power of CHANGE for all of us.

So rather than have my butterflies form a complete heart, I put some littler paper butterflies on the edges to create wings so my heart can SOAR! And that’s one of the best things about this simple and fun project, because there’s no specific way you need to arrange your butterflies. Other than the heart shape, I put these butterflies on in random directions and distances apart. There are other ways to arrange these butterflies, of course, and I’ll show you some ideas in this tutorial.

The real beauty of this paper butterfly heart is you don’t actually need a lot to make it. All you really need are about 4-5 sheets of paper — I’m using several sheets of paper from this Seafoam Green pack I got at Michaels. I cut out my butterflies — there are about 250–300 of them — using my Cricut cutting machine, but you could also use scissors of course (though it might take a while). There are actually four different kinds of butterflies in this heart — blue morphos, emerald swallowtails, monarchs, and scarlet peacocks. All of the butterfly designs are free here on my blog for you to use!

You’ll also need a canvas, board, or sign to attach your butterflies to. I’m using a 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas — I’ve not painted or prepared it in any way. I simply took it out of its packaging and went to town!

And finally you’ll need a way to attach your butterflies to your canvas. You all had several different ideas on how you might attach them, so I experimented with three different methods — glue dots, raised zots, and glue. I’ll show you which method turned out to be both the fastest and most reliable in this tutorial!

HOW TO CREATE A PAPER BUTTERFLY HEART CANVAS OR WALL ART

STEP 1: GET THE BUTTERFLY DESIGNS
STEP 2: PREPARE AND CUT YOUR BUTTERFLIES
STEP 3: FOLD YOUR BUTTERFLY WINGS
STEP 4: TRACE A HEART (OR OTHER SHAPE) ON YOUR CANVAS WITH A PENCIL
STEP 5: GLUE YOUR PAPER BUTTERFLIES ON HOWEVER YOU WISH!
STEP 6: ERASE THE PENCIL LINES

As it turned out, the best way to apply the paper butterflies was with tacky glue. The glue dots and zots were more time consuming to apply AND they weren’t as stable on the canvas. You can use the tacky glue as I have, but really any glue that dries clear should work just fine.

Some folks like to put the paper butterfly canvas heart in a shadowbox with glass over it to keep it dust-free. If you do that, you can also put vinyl on the glass with a name or a sweet message. Or you could just add some text to the corner of your canvas.

I appreciate every subscriber. It’s free and easy to subscribe — just click: http://bit.ly/sub2jennifer

Prefer to get my updates and free project patterns delivered straight to your e-mail inbox? Subscribe to my free newsletter at https://jennifermaker.com (scroll to the bottom)

#Cricut #CricutMade #DesignSpace
Follow me at:
Blog: https://jennifermaker.com
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/jennifermakercrafts
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cricutcraftersandmakers/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jennifer.maker
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/jenuinemom

Please subscribe to my channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker for more video tutorials to craft a life you love!

Credits:
Introduction: PixelBytes (my child!)
Music: Cute by Bensound (licensed, royalty and copyright free)
Videography: Jennifer Marx on a Panasonic Lumix FZ-1000 DSLR 4K camera
Butterflies: easyCGchannel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFMtv9A_V4Y at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQxlVnXcogQdFNyM2fhg6Lw