Butterfly canvases...

Also, while we were on our holiday break at Easter, we visited Berridale Fair. At one of the stalls there, I saw a beautiful triple layer canvassy artworky thing, with a golden flower (I think) attached to the front in the middle. But for $60, I admired briefly, then quickly moved along!

... But then it occurred to me that I could probably do something like that myself anyway! I just needed canvasses, material, and an item to attach to the front! And I was sure it'd cost much less than $60.

When we came home (not straight away, but I WAS pretty eager to start my new artwork idea!), I went to Sam's Warehouse, bought different sized canvasses, and found a packet of five different coloured butterflies! Excellent! Then I went material shopping (with the butterflies in hand, holding them up against different fabrics! -I was too much in my own world to notice if people were giving me strange looks or not)

I got to work with my new items, and a stapler gun! After cutting and wrapping the materials onto the canvasses, I stapled the fabric onto the wood. Then I laid them out with their matching canvasses to see what they would look like, and how they would 'sit'. My first big challenge was working out how to actually attach each canvas to the other, because there were up to three different sized canvases to attach -with the hope of hanging them up on a wall- I couldn't just use glue or blu tac...

Then a good friend had the idea of using the stapler gun on the back of each canvas to attach them from behind... BRILLIANT! It worked so well, and because the edges of the canvasses were wooden, the stapler gun was perfect to hold them in place! The same friend had the idea of using PVA glue to hold the butterflies on, too, as I was originally thinking of sewing them on! Wow, glad I asked for someone else's opinion!! ... No one else sees the back, anyway, but this is what it looked like:

The idea that I had for these was to have three different sized canvasses, with the bigger canvas being patterned fabric, and the front smaller two having two different coloured fabrics, that both matched the patterned fabric (hence the fabric shopping WITH the butterflies in hand, and sometimes with the butterflies AND pieces of fabric!). This is one of the finished canvasses, though if I get time to 'fix' it, (or just do it again), I will swap around the pink and blue fabrics, because the butterfly looks better on blue, rather than pink...

With this next one that I made, I also had the idea of attaching (with PVA glue) little (fake) diamonds to each of the corners on the green fabric, to match the silver on the butterfly... I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I have the glue, and I have the diamonds... Perhaps I will finish it today... In fact, all of them would potentially look good with little sequins or diamonds on them, to give them that extra bit of 'bling' :)

It was tricky to match the canvas fabrics (to my standard), so there ended up being a couple with only two canvasses, as the patterned fabrics (that were to go on the back) were either too shiny or too light to really go well with the rest of it... But that's okay! I am certain I will find a use for both the canvasses AND the fabrics! :) ... These are two of the smaller (two canvas layer) creations:

These were really fun and super easy to make. You can most definitely choose any type of fabric, and choose any type of 'thing' to glue onto the front! It just so happens that I like butterflies, and Sam's Warehouse sells them in big, colourful packets! I also have a gold butterfly (from Spotlight) lined up for a similar canvas to the blue butterfly one, which didn't quite match the bigger canvas because that fabric had gold spotty sequins on it (a bit too much 'bling'!)... The gold/red/blue one will be triple layered...

Tamara is still waiting for her Purple and Pink themed butterfly canvas, which originally was going to have FOUR different sized canvasses on it! I'm not sure how it will work out, but hopefully soon I will be able to surprise her with the finished 'artwork'!

Stay tuned for when I (and I will!) update the blog with these two mentioned butterfly canvasses! :)