Origami and punched butterflies

 My girlfriend at work is graduating with her Master's degree.  I decided  to make her this butterfly collage.  It is very easy to make.  I started out with the frame below.  I bought it at a thrift store for under $3.00.  I took out the glass and the mat, but used the back part to glue on my card stock.

 Before I glued down the card stock, I embossed it using a stencil I had and the end of a mechanical pencil (without the lead in).  You can go to the craft store and buy a light box and an embossing tool, but I just taped the stencil and paper to the window.

The stencil is on the window and I used the pencil to go around each shape. 

I embossed a K (her first initial) and a group of flowers.

I like this part because I didn't have to go out and buy other materials, I just used what I already had to emboss the paper.  Once this was done, I glued the card stock to the back of the frame using a spray adhesive. 

I didn't have card stock large enough to cover the entire back of the frame, so I used two different colors.  In order to hide the line between the yellow and white card stock I added pink Ric-rac (it looks red in the photos).

Ahhhhh. . . Now the fun part!! I have two different kinds of butterflies in this project.  The smaller butterflies are simply punched out using a Martha Stewart craft punch.

For this project I punched four white from card-stock, four mustard-yellow from card stock, two green from card stock and two pink from origami paper. (I punched out more than I needed).

 The larger butterflies are folded origami using origami paper.  There are several different types of butterflies you can fold but I love the look of this one.  It is Michael LaFosse's design and he does a great job of explaining how to do it in his video.  You can find his folding instructions here: http://www.pem.org/sites/origami/

Once you have all of your butterflies, first lay them down to see where you want them to go and then glue them to the card stock.  I used regular craft glue.  Wait for the glue to dry, put it back in the frame and viola!! 

Here are some other ones I've made: