We’ve been out and about a lot over the past couple of weeks as I make the most of my son’s spring holidays. Earlier this week we took a trip to the nearby Papiliorama and I must admit that while the trip was mostly about fun for my little ones, it was also a bit of a field trip for me. For the boys the highlight of the trip was possibly the outdoor play area, followed closely by the tree top walk in the Jungle Trek area.
While I enjoyed every moment of my time outdoors and climbing up and down and up and down the stairs in the jungle I will admit that I could happily have spent many a happy hour in the Papiliorama section watching and photographing the butterflies and getting more ideas and inspiration for my butterfly designs. But even with all our running around I did manage to garner a little inspiration and will hopefully get working on some new designs next week.
Although I’ve not been sewing too much of late I’ve still managed to add another EPP butterfly to my slowly growing collection. If you haven’t seen any of the earlier butterflies then you can find them all here.
The mini butterfly ATCs (artist trading cards) that I had been working on last month were finished, sent off, and delightfully received.
I followed these up with a third mini butterfly which I created as a Mother’s Day gift for my mum. Similar to the ATCs this butterfly was appliquéd to a mixed fabric background featuring an embroidered flower garden of beaded lazy daisies and french knots. I then mounted the finished piece on strong card and then framed it in a box frame. By gluing a piece of cork between the finished picture and the back of the frame it appears to almost float in the frame.
I’m delighted to say that with the addition of lots of buble wrap this little beauty survived the postal journey home to Ireland and that my mum was more than delighted with her gift, even if I was a little couple of weeks late in getting it to her.
Although my butterflies don’t really feature hexagons, or at least not regularly shaped hexagons, they are still all EPP with the odd hexagonish piece here and there so I’m linking up with this month’s Help for Hexie-aholics! over at Sarah Did It!
If any of you would like to try and make your own versions of my butterfy designs you’ll be delighted to know I’m in the process of finalising patterns for the first couple of designs at the moment. I hope to have these available within a couple of weeks once I hear back from all of my pattern testers.
I’m thrilled you remembered to join HeLP today! We link up the 17th of each month so I hope you’ll bring your butterflies again. I particularly like the framed butterfly for your mom that appears to float – such a great presentation. Looking forward to your patterns! I miss the butterfly garden near where I lived in Miami…enjoyed seeing yours!
That is beautiful, Paula! The embroidery really adds a lot to it. The butterfly is colorful. Thanks for sharing.
Fantastic butterflies, both stitched and alive!
The inspirational butterflies are remarkable in their beauty; your likenesses are stunning. Wow, words seem inadequate right now to say how pretty the cards are with the embroidery and the floral prints-just gorgeous. So delicately effervescent and ephemeral-looking.
Lovely EPP butterflies. I Would EPP everything if I could, so great to see some non- hexie projects.
These are so beautiful…. I’ve been wanting to make my mom a butterfly, you have given me inspiration… Thank you, I’m a new follower!! I look forward to seeing your patterns.