Pretty Butterfly Embellishments for Card Making

These beautiful and colorful, flying bugs add in a real touch of elegance and glamour to all paper crafted greeting cards and projects. So much so that it's no real wonder why so many people choose butterflies as themes for special occasions such as weddings because they always look so pretty.

You can buy a large range of ready made butterfly embellishments for card making or you can make some of your own DIY versions using different techniques such as rubber stamping, die-cutting or punching.

As soon as spring is on the horizon, I get busy making butterfly crafts such as handmade cards for birthdays, thank you's, anniversaries and also projects around the home. I love creating cute and colorful projects and using these adorable insects as inspiration never fails to disappoint. Come and get ideas on different ways of adding these wonderful embellishments into your very own crafting projects.

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Wonderful Looking Butterfly Embellishments and Stickers for Paper Crafts

These pretty winged insects can add so much elegance to your paper crafts. One thing my craft stash is always full of is butterflies because my daughter loves them and so do I.

Most spring and summer themed crafting will have at least one of these adorable flutter bugs stuck on somewhere and there are plenty of ways to add them in too. There are some wonderful glitter and bejeweled 3D designs, some by Prima, for adding in some real elegance to a card or craft project.



Get these Three Dimensional Butterfly Stickers from Amazon.com

UK Readers get Butterfly Stickers from Amazon.co.uk

I have a weakness for really nice stickers, and there are just so many to choose from where butterflies are concerned. K&Company are often my top choice because they are such good quality designs.

Most of these butterfly stickers are just ready to use as they are and are particularly good for special greeting cards such as Thank You cards, Wedding, Anniversary and Engagement Cards and anything sent to a special friend. These look good whatever the project but I like to save them for special occasions.



Buy these Dimensional Butterfly Sticker Embellishments at Amazon.com

UK Readers get Butterfly Stickers from Amazon.co.uk

Ways to Use Butterfly Stickers as Embellishments

You can see from the intricate stickers chosen above that even if you stuck these designs flat onto your project they'd look good. But going one step further and giving the sticker a paper or card backing, cutting out and raising up behind the wings with 3D foam pads really makes it stand out.

Antennae, the long stalks, on butterflies are really hard to pull off well with stickers. If they are shown on the design, I'll often cut those off and add in my own using thin craft wires or cord stuck behind the design.

Don't be afraid to dress up the sticker design even further and personalize to match in exactly with your handmade card or project, add glitter, sequins, tiny gems and more color.

Colorful Mini Butterfly Brads

Get these Mini Butterfly Brads from Amazon.com

UK Readers get Butterfly Brads from Amazon.co.uk

I love the look of these pre-adorned embellishments and stickers that you can get such as the glitter fabric ones featured above and, for adding in just a tiny accent somewhere, these colorful and cute brads are surely ideal.

I have a couple of different craft cutting machines but I still really love my manual hand paper punches. I have a huge deep drawer full of them and I think I just love the fact that they are so convenient when you just want a quick cut-out for a card or project.

While my daughter's too young to use my craft cutting machines, she can use the punches with my supervision so they are also good for family crafting too and more social events. These are good for most papers and I frequently use them on scrapbook papers but they are not great for textured papers or thicker cardstock. Punch out one color or punch out a pattern. It is a lot of fun.

Large Butterfly Punch by EK Tools

Get a Butterfly Punch from Amazon.com

UK Readers get a Butterfly Punch from Amazon.co.uk

Punched shapes don’t need to be stuck flat onto your projects and butterflies in particular are crying out to be layered up very much like what you can see in the image above here. I like to punch out the same butterfly 2-4 times, glue them all over the top of each other just down the middle: a Zig glue pen will work well for this.

Then you can fan out the wings and push them up for a dimensional effect. Try doing this with colored papers that gradually get lighter or darker in shade for an on-trend ombre effect.

Alternatively, you can punch out the same design into 6 pieces. Fold them all in half down the middle and stick one half of a butterfly up with half of another, all the way around into a circle design. This also creates a very dimensional design that you can hang up and suspend in a 3D card with cut-out frame.

Lilac and Spring Green Butterfly Greeting Card Example

Rub On Butterfly Design Used with Machine Cut Scallop Oval Backing and Scrapbook Papers

If you do a lot of crafting, you're bound to have butterfly designs hiding somewhere in your stash. Patterned papers, fabrics, stickers, punches, rubber stamps, rub ons and stencils can all be used to create cute embellishments for your cards, scrapbook layouts and DIY projects around the home.

The butterfly design on this card was made from a rub on. Rub ons are a little bit like stickers except they are completely flat and you have to transfer them onto a smooth surface paper or card using a transfer sheet and what looks like a wooden popsicle stick. I normally use the blunt end of a card creaser tool.

This rub on has been cut out and layered up onto the card using 3D foam squares and I used a couple of pieces of jewelry wire for the antennae.

You can make similar embellishments of your own using stickers, printed fabric, rubber stamp designs, paper punches, cutting dies and your own DIY efforts from materials such as paper, craft foam and felt. I can imagine how little crochet versions would look so beautiful too. Add the touch of spring into your projects.

Sizzix Bigz Butterfly Die

Get a Sizzix Bigz Die for BigKick, Big Shot and Vagabond at Amazon.com

UK Readers get Butterfly Dies from Amazon.co.uk

Craft cutter machine dies do all the hard work for you and they can cut faster and more intricately than you could by hand. I have both a Sizzix machine which I use with dies of a fixed size and a computerized craft cutter for pre-made designs although I’ll normally choose to make my own.

I still love to cut by hand but with designs that are much more than just an outline with lots of small, punched out parts inside then a craft cutter is a better option. Great for people who do a lot of paper crafting, like me!

Sizzix do some framelits sets which have coordinating rubber stamps and dies. These are really special because you can stamp out a design with your choice of ink and then your Sizzix will cut out a perfect outline around it for you.

If you've ever struggled with cutting out items you've ink stamped and getting a nice clean outline to it, framelits could be a great choice.

The great thing about using rubber stamps for your card making and paper crafts is that you can choose the exact shade of color that you want to stamp with. Newbies often stick to black ink which is a safe choice but not always the most inspired.

There's a whole range of colored inks out there to experiment with including metallic shades and also multicolor pads which are fun too. If you use clear stamps, please be aware that you need clear acrylic stamp blocks to place them on and use them with.

How to Use Stamped Butterfly Images as Embellishments

Stamped Butterfly Dream Card with Iris Folding and Rubber Stamped Techniques

Make a wash of different colors using watercolor inks on appropriate paper. Allow to dry then stamp your butterfly design over the top with a dark enough ink shade. Cut out for a pretty rainbow effect. This works best with larger stamps.

For a wonderful sheer look, stamp onto Vellum which is a beautiful translucent paper that you can partially see through. StazOn is the type of ink I’d recommend for this as other inks might struggle to dry properly. Cut out and stick to the project down the middle, lifting the wings up a little.

Choose a simple design to heat emboss with. This gives the stamped outline a slightly raised edge and looks great with metallics. You need embossing ink like VersaMark, Embossing Powder and a Craft Heat Gun. Stamp the design, shake on the powder, tap off the excess and then carefully heat the design for a dimensional outline. Cut out and layer up for your project. Have fun with your Spring projects.

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Page Last Updated: January 10th, 2019