Handmade Butterfly Greeting Cards

Hello, my creative friends! Today, I will show you how to make these beautiful butterfly cards.

I’ll be creating birthday cards, but you can adapt them to be used as thank you cards or whatever your heart desires. In any case, the person who will receive these cards will love you forever…hmm…let me rephrase this: she will be amazed and so thankful that you gifted your creation to her. And yeah, these babies are really easy to make. Let’s begin.

Watch the video or read below.

What will you need?

• Card Template (http://bit.ly/2m98NDe)
• Pre-made blank cards by Recollections (4.25 by 5.5 inches)
• Watercolor paper (Fluid Watercolor Paper, Cold Press Finish)
• Watercolor paints
• Medium paint brush
• Gold ink pen (Pilot G-2 07 Gold Ink)
• Gold wire
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors or x-acto knife
• Pencil
• Ballpoint pen

Creation Process

Step 1: Lettering

Cut out the template so it fits the pre-made blank cards. Follow the crop marks and cut out the template with either scissors or an x-acto knife and a ruler. The template should be the same size as your blank greeting cards.

Transfer the template to the card by shading the back side of the template with a pencil. This will create a DIY transfer paper.  Use a ball-point ben and with some pressure go over each letter.

Carefully trace the letters with your gold ink pen, since the text has some embossing effect, it should be fairly easy to follow each letter shape.

Step 2: Painting Butterflies

Use the template to trace your butterflies onto the watercolor paper. Then, use a wet-on-wet watercolor technique to color your butterflies. Take your blush add water over the butterflies, focus on adding more water in the center and less water toward the edges.

To create a red butterfly, take the brightest red that you have and paint in the center of your butterfly. Now, clean your brush with clean water take a little bit of orange-red color and paint the edges of the butterfly wings while connecting the two colors together. To add depth and contrast, take some purple and paint in the center of the butterfly.

I decided to add salt over the butterfly to create some uneven texture, but you can skip that step. For all my butterflies, I’m using a specific technique of painting. I mainly use three colors. I pick my primary color, then add my adjacent secondary color, which is similar in tone but has a slight variation of the main color. Finally, I’m adding my third color, which is darker color and adjacent to the secondary color. The last color supposed to add depth and contrast to the shape. If you look on the color wheel, you’ll notice that all these three colors are next to each other: for instance, yellow, orange, and red are analogous colors. In other words, they’re pretty harmonious colors to be used together. To see how I paint all of the butterflies, please watch my tutorial video.

Step 3: Adding sparkle

When the butterflies are dry, take your gold ink pen and outline the edges of the butterfly wings, as well as adding lines and dots where ever you feel like it. This will add some sparkle and a finishing feel.

Step 4: Cut them out

Cut out your butterflies with scissors or an x-acto knife. I prefer to cut it out right next to the gold outline but you can also leave some white around each butterfly.

Step 5: Create Antennae

Take your gold wire and create butterfly antennae. Bend the wire in half and cut it with the pliers. Also, make sure to bend the wire edge outwards so the edges are not sharp. Once you’re done shaping the antennas, hot glue them to the butterfly.

Step 6: Finish

The last step is to hot glue the butterflies to the cards. Voila!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!