Craft glue butterflies and dragonflies

My aunt bought me some rather pretty butterflies for christmas a few years back and I've been trying to work out how they were made, but it remained a mystery until I ran across this tutorial, which gave me a good place to start. All you need is some cling wrap, wire, craft glue (or any glue that dries clear, I imagine), glitter pens and food colouring.

I bent some metal frames in butterfly and dragonfly shapes. Mixed some glue, glitter and food colouring until I got the mix I wanted. (It was all very much guess work.) I pressed the butterflies as flat as possible, then filled in the wire frames with the glue mixture using a toothpick and left it to dry. Once dry, they peeled off the plastic quite easily.

In the process of drying out on cling film.

The final versions in several colours.

Steampunk necklaces

Between there not being many steampunk related items in South Africa and the price of importing, I tend to make my own steampunk items. Here's how I make cheap steampunk necklaces.

Here are the supplies I use:

From top left: an old watch, rhinestones, butterfly sequins, and assorted beads

Measure the size of the watch you want to use and find a picture that fits, or that you can resize. Print out three or four copies and cut out the levels of the image and stick them together using thick double-sided tape to give them some depth, then decorate as you like.

 

I attached some wire to create a loop to attach a chain. You can add whatever you like here. In the previous necklace I used keyrings because it was all I had on hand. And you've got a quick, cheap necklace to add to a steampunk outfit.

Butterfly hair pins

Here's a combination, at a friend's suggestion, of the beaded hair pins with the transparency butterflies.

Obviously, lighter colours show up better in darker hair.