DIY: Butterfly Monogram

So I have been racking my brain the last few weeks trying to figure out a theme for mini-me's room. While I despise the color pink--she will be princess (no point in denying it) so I want her to have the girliest room possible. Maybe I'm a hypocrite, but my inner diva wants my little girl to have it all.

I was watching HSN Thursday night-- (regular routine even though I never buy anything) and they had Martha Stewart Crafts as today's feature. She had the cutest Butterfly Punch Kit available that I just HAD to get. While I had no idea what I was going to do with, I knew I could always find something. This is me after all. Lefthanders are pretty creative when they have to be.


While I didn't buy from HSN, I did head over to Michael's today and picked up the punch. It was $9.95+$3.00 S&H on HSN at Michael's $9.99 and I could walk out with it right there. Made sense to me!
While at Michael's I came across a really cute white shadow box that just stood out to me so I got that as well. I also picked up some paint, scrapbooking paper and some other items--all the while praying creativity will find me before I hit the check out counter.

What you will need:

Paper Punch: Martha Stewart has a design for every occasion. I chose the Royal Butterfly. There is also a Monarch ($12.99) and Classic ($9.99) available. If this is for a nursery, teddy bears, balloons, baby bottles will also work perfectly. You can find these at Wal-Mart, Target & Michael's.

Glue: With some of the other variations of this project that I've seen people have used glue dots. I could not find any, so I went with the Martha Stewart Adhesive Gel. $3.99

Cardstock: Any kind will be fine. ($.49-$1.99)

Shadow Box: 13x13 T-Shirt shadow box. You can use any shadow box--but this is what I found. And I'm glad I did get a 13x13 because my 12x12 paper almost didn't fit!!! Plus this shadow box was 40% off at Michael's so it only cost me $6.29.

Now--from this point on it's a cake walk. As long as you know what design you want to make.  I thought I knew when I got started, but, I changed my mind shortly after taking everything out of the wrappers. I then spent 45 minutes going back and forth between two designs. I eventually settled on my first thought.

The paper punch while convenient was a little difficult to use. It was very tough to press down on the paper and I felt as if my hands were going to break off each time I have to punch the paper. That is really my only complaint about that product. The best thing is--if it gets dull, all you have to do is slide a piece of aluminum foil underneath the blades to sharpen them! So it should last you a lifetime.

Here are my butterflies. The paper is Tiffany blue with glitter.  Very hard to tell from the picture. But as soon as I can find my camera charger I'll go back to using the good camera. I promise!

I did mess up on one butterfly. But it was hardly noticeable.

All in all, I really enjoyed this project. I fell like everything is starting to come together slowly but surely. I know once the rest of my DIY projects are done and we get the room together, it will all look great!