I came up with these beaded butterflies last year, and loved them, but they weren’t selling despite the many compliments I received.
Two weeks ago, I received a convo from an Etsy customer about my beaded butterflies. She was interested in 60 butterflies to use for her sister’s wedding invitations. Sarah, who lives in Ireland, sent me some links to similar chartreuse green and chocolate brown she was using for the invites.
Initially, we settled on green butterflies, Sarah picking the style/pattern of the one above. I had made up 3 samples for her to choose from:
After a few days, Sarah and I were both concerned the greens wouldn’t match- with her being overseas, we have different suppliers/companies available to us and colours can be hard to match.
Sarah asked if we could switch the design of the butterflies to chocolate brown and ivory, with green beads. We decided the brown would likely be easier to match than the green.
I was able to find some chocolate brown and ivory damask print designer paper and some light green beads and got to work!
The first step is to punch out the butterflies. Each butterflies has 6 layers of paper- 3 of heavy chocolate chip cards stock and 3 of the designer paper..that’s 360 paper butterflies!
I arranged them in little piles and then 
started layering them, with a dab of glue to hold them together.
I think they look like chocolate, white and dark swirled together- yummy!
Then each butterfly needs four beads to make the body; I use floral wire because I can get a gauge that’s flexible and create the antennae.
Here’s what 60 finished butterflies with 360 pieces of paper and 240 beads look like!
The butterflies made their flight to Ireland last week and arrived safely just 4 days later…I couldn’t believe it. International mail always makes me a bit nervous, so I was pleased when they made it faster than the post had promised.
I’m really happy with how these turned out, and Sarah promised a picture of the finished invitations…I can’t wait to see the finished product!
I’m thankful when customers feel comfortable approaching me for custom orders, based on what they see in my store and their own personal vision.
Thank you Sarah!
Happy Monday,
Ciao for now,
(ps…did you check out my CASE challenge? click here to get the details!)
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