This is the top of the butterfly collage box for my daughter's birthday. She loves butterflies as do I, and my mother loved them too. One time Jessa gave her grandmother a bracelet with a little butterfly on a piece of china. My mother wore it and loved it because ot was a special gift. Years later, one side of the bracelent broke, and no fix was possible, but I couldn't part with the leftover piece. It was the inspiration for this project along with some flowers my daughter and granddaugher gave me for Mothers Day.

I need to add a few more items to the front of the box with the Happy Birthday butterfly and doily.  That means another search. Meanwhile, the under-cover of the  collage is finished, and the collage box itself is done. I was delighted to find bright butterfly stamps from a big old box of international stamps. The mini-watercolor and stamped message along with the butterflies with gold were my original work. The floral pin is a found object from a box I didn't know I had, and large butterfly is punched out of a magazine. Over the entire inside cover is a very subtle and soft blue netting to add texture. Feels like it pulls together nicely.

Inside the box is a butterfly collage I did ages ago and held onto it since I knew I'd use it eventually. It's set on to of a silver, sturdy paper that serves as a "frame," with the collage elevated a bit with pop-dots to make sure the deckling is set off. The sentimental pieces include that china butterfly piece that was on the original bracelet and some flowers from Jessa. As I worked on this I came across a huge surprise, pieces of a Monarch butterfly I had long forgotten about. That's why I chose the Monarch stamp for the border! No clue when or where I found the butterfly pieces. There they were -- surprise -- to be set gently in the margin area of the collage. A added a few other bits of this and that like the butterfly pendant that one of my girls wore at one time. I strung it with metallic thread and hung it over a small floral button-cover.

This was a lovely though extensive and somewhat tiring projcect to keep steadily working on by adding piece by piece to the collection it would become. Glad I saved pieces for it as I kept hoping to use them for something special. Now they have their own home.

I'm very happy to know about collage boxes and plan to make more. Thanks for the splendid inspiration to think about boxes of fanciful collections of this and that saved in collage form.

Best,

Judy