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.

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.

Transparency butterflies

I'm a little obsessed with butterflies. It might be the acceptable adult version of my childhood obsession with fairies. I found this tutorial detailing how to create absolutely amazing butterflies with stamps and alcohol ink, neither of which I have, so I improvised. I found images of butterflies online and printed them directly onto the transparencies, then filled them in with kids' glass deco pens by Bostik. It worked quite well and I'm very impressed with the result.

The butterflies can take a little while to cut out neatly, although that time should be cut down with a good craft knife. Those with a little more detail obviously take longer to outline and you do have to wait for each colour to dry before adding more, but generally you can produce a good sized batch in an afternoon.

The four small ones in the top left are glued to little pegs so that they can be clipped onto things. Currently, I have them on my curtains. The two below that are glued onto kebab sticks so I can arrange them in my plants (all succulents because I have a tendency to kill plants with ease). The two large ones are glued to magnets and are on my fridge, as you can see below.

Wire dragonflies

A while ago I tried my hand at wire crafts after discovering this tutorial on wire and bead dragonflies. The tutorial is clear and easy to follow and the result pretty enough that even if it doesn't end up quite right, it doesn't really matter.

Each one took me about 20 minutes after a bit of practice. They were a lot of fun to make, although, as with most wire crafts, I'm not sure my nails thank me.