Framed Butterfly Curio

This is one of those projects that I've been sitting on for years. It's not that I'm a procrastinator, or a hoarder, I am merely extremely patient when it comes to waiting for the powers that be, to converge upon my little brain with divine inspiration.

This time inspiration came via Oddity Asylum. Do check out their etsy shop, they have beautifully framed specimens, all ethically sourced.

I obtained my specimen the way I usually seem to procure dead things, from a friend cleaning house and deciding it's probably something I could use. But here is the origin story for my specimen:

I'm a little surprise there's no mention of the species, but it would appear it belongs to the Morpho family. Not to be confuse with Morpheus who belongs to the Endless family. 

As I mentioned, I've had this for quite awhile and I've also been making a conscious effort to not buy any new art supplies. To make this project happen I had to cave and buy the metal filigree corners and I couldn't even find what I wanted local.

I bought this mix from Amazon, actually Smile.Amazon.com, so at least my favorite charity could benefit. Every little bit counts.

This is what my random selection ended up being. The metal is very thin, easily bent by hand. An attribute that I think will come in handy if I use them to adorn a round bottle or ornament. I wouldn't use them to embellish anything that didn't have a solid surface to give support.

And if I didn't plan on painting over them anyway I would be disappointed in the color selection. The gold was the only finish I didn't like, which is just my personal taste. But there's no way to predict if you are going to get enough pieces of the same shape and finish for a project.

I forgot to take a before picture, but this is close. Here I've just laid the embellishments on to see if I like them.

Here's everything but the embellishments painted black. I actually had enough of the same finish that I could have left them as is, but I like everything all black, letting the butterfly take center stage. I toned down the gold on the original mat, both by painting it champagne gold, and by adding and wiping away black paint.

I don't know anything about, nor did I research, mounting butterflies. I don't know if painting the mat with acrylics will have any long term affect on the butterfly. I did let the mat and frame cure for a week before reassembling.

The butterfly was actually mounted onto a thick glob of rubbery white stuff, so the butterfly doesn't actually touch the mat. I used a box cutter blade to shimmy underneath it and separate it from the mat, which thankfully it did easily. And I was careful to move the butterfly by handling the white glob only. After painting and curing, I used craft glue to re-adhere the white glob to the mat. And this is what it looks like in proper lighting without the glare of the glass frame.

One more project down to add to my collection of oddities.