Monday 8 May 2017

Butterfly 3D Suncatcher

Hello to all our crafting friends, Antony here! Well where has time gone?
It has been an age since I last posted something, but I've been busy
with life! Anyhow for this project I wanted to share with you all, a sort of
suncatcher that i've made. The actual decorating is pretty quick
but like most, it's a waiting game for the glue to dry between
each step. Hope you enjoy this bright colourful project, as much as I
enjoyed making it!


For this project I've used a large acrylic bauble with a large hole in one side, peel
off sticker material in various colours, coloured cardstock, Pinflair Gellitex,
Buff-it craft polishes and Pearl Wands.
The large butterfly die is from Crafters Companion and the
leaves and flower dies are unbranded dies that I have in my collection!
 

Step 1 Firstly take the acrylic bauble and make sure it's clean
from dust and grease. Most acrylic baubles come in two halves,
glue these together using a small amount of Pinflair Gellitex.
Next using peel off sticker material, die cut some butterflies.
I've used various colours of material to make it look more interesting.
I then stuck the butterflies to the outside of the bauble.
If you haven't got peel off sticker material, use thin cardstock to cut out
your butterflies and use Gellitex to stick them into place on the bauble.
Don't worry if the Gellitex spills out, as you won't see it after you've
applied the Gellitex over it later.
 

Step 2 Once I had placed all the butterflies into position, I then used a sponge
and applied Gellitex gel in a dabbing action all over the outer surface
of the bauble. This creates the perfect frost finish on the acrylic.
Drying time for the Gellitex is about half an hour for a thin application. 


Step 3 Whilst the Gellitex was drying, I die cut myself all the flowers
and leaves using coloured cardstock (about 240gsm).


Step 4 After I had layered and glued the die cut flowers, I then applied a
very small amount of Pinflair Buff-it craft polish to just highlight
the outer edges of the petals using a sponge brush.
Then using a Pinflair Pearl Wand, I added detail to the centre of each flower.
 

Step 5 I applied the same treatment to the leaves as I did the flowers, as
you can see the Buff-it craft polish picks up the embossing on the leaves really nicely.


Step 6 As well as the flowers and leaves, I also cut some large butterflies
using a die from Crafters Companion.Once cut, I highlighted the edges
using a sponge brush and Buff-it craft polish.


Step 7 Using a Pinflair Pearl Wand, I added a little extra detail to the
body of the butterflies. The Pearl Wand decoration takes about half and hour to
dry for smallish size pearls. Once all the elements were dry I then started to
arrange them inside of the acrylic bauble. First I stuck the leaves in,
using silicone glue so that it would stick to the acrylic bauble really well. After the
leaves I started to arrange the flower heads. Tweezer came in really
handy here, otherwise it would have been impossible to work within
the bauble.


Step 8 Next I let the silicone glue dry totally before I then started to
place the 2 butterflies in position. Again I used silicone glue, not only
to hold them in place, but also to also help give them some dimension.



Step 9 Once again I allowed the silicone glue to completely dry and then started to
decorate the outside of the bauble. Starting with the leaves, I began arranging
them so that part of the leaf curled over the entrance to the opening in the
bauble. I curled the leaves slightly and then stuck it in place using
silicone glue. Once all the leaves were in position I added the flower heads.


Step 10 The very last thing to do was to add some ribbon to the hanger
of the bauble. I let all the glue dry completely before then hanging it in
a window. The Gellitex acts like a frosting effect on the bauble, but you
can still see the butterflies that have been cut out using the peel off sticker
material. When the light shines through the window, that's when you
this little creation really comes alive.

Hope you've enjoyed this post, hopefully I'll get time again to upload
another post soon!
Until next time, Happy Crafting!

 
Antony