Tutorial - 3D Butterflies and Hearts

Good afternoon! Hope your day is going well! I just got back from volunteering in my son's preschool class. It was so much fun! I was in charge of a Valentine's craft table and helped 16 three and four-year-olds glue hearts to construction paper.

So here I am at my virtual craft table with a tutorial for the butterflies and hearts that I posted yesterday.

Three Dimensional Butterflies and Hearts

Supplies Needed:

• White glue (the stuff you used at the craft table in preschool!)
• Bowl for mixing
• Paper plate or other work surface (you just need a place to get messy)
• Paintbrush
• Assorted fabric scraps
• Pencil or fabric marker
• Double-sided tape (if you're going to attach these to your wall or other surface)
• Iron and ironing board
• Sewing machine or needle and thread for hand sewing
• Cardstock (to trace your templates)
• Templates for your shapes (you can make your own or download my pdf below)

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Here's how you make them...
Assemble all of your supplies and trace and cut your templates onto cardstock. For the purpose of this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make the hearts but the process is exactly the same for the butterflies.

Now you need to stiffen your fabric scraps. You can buy commercial fabric stiffener but I usually just make my own with white craft glue (with a three-year-old in the house I tend to have it on hand).

To make your own fabric stiffener, mix three parts glue to one part water in a bowl.

Paint a generous coat of your glue concoction on all of your fabric scraps and allow to dry about one hour. I drape my wet scraps over coat hangers for drying.

Once your scraps are dry, give them a quick press with a dry iron to flatten them out.

Now fold your scraps in half with the wrong side showing. Place your template on the fold and trace with a pencil or fabric marker. Cut all of your shapes.

Once you have your shapes all cut, you're ready to assemble them. For the hearts, I chose three coordinating fabrics and cut a large, medium and small to stack together.

At this point I like to sew them together. I just do a quick line of stitches with my machine but you could easily hand sew a few stitches if you prefer.

That's it! You have an adorable three-dimensional piece of fabric art.

There are so many things you could do with these little beauties. Here are just a few ideas...

• Glue them to blank cards to make sweet valentine's or birthday cards for your friends
• Frame them to make adorable wall art
• Use double-sided tape to attach them to your wall (I've had the butterflies up in my daughter's room for about a week and they haven't fallen yet!)
• Glue to the top of a gift box for an extra special presentation
• Attach a ribbon loop and hang from a cabinet or doorknob
• Glue to a picture frame for a sweet embellishment
• Sew several together to make a little garland

I'm sure there are many other things you could do with these. Get creative and have fun.

As always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave me a comment or send me an e-mail.

Happy Crafting to you!