Butterfly Trees

I still have lots of ideas for different kinds of trees, so which one next? Butterfly tree, it fills the void for different colours, that’s a surprise, right? Also, I’ve been learning about the process of metamorphosis, from the caterpillar to the butterfly. Yes, I’m going to do a teachy bit!

The caterpillar, when it enters the cocoon stage has to completely die to everything it was, in order to be transformed into a beautiful butterfly. The caterpillar literally becomes a protein soup that contains only a few stem cells that will grow to become the butterfly. Even in the final stages the butterfly has to break open the cocoon to emerge, nothing and no-one can intervene at this moment or the butterfly might not have the strength to emerge from the darkness to the light. Sounds a lot like life, doesn’t it?

Anyway, teachy bit over!

So I used the original tree pattern of thick garden wires, wrapped with the thinner wire, then splitting the thick wires to form branches and making smaller ones as I went. At the end of the small branches I attached a 100 wooden butterfly buttons, guess what? They were all brightly coloured, there’s a surprise!

The roots were woven with coloured wires, making a nice flat base. (This one is not for sale, however the second one is! See my shop).

Here is my second attempt at a Butterfly Tree. I used the same techniques as for my first one, but finished it with a different coloured base.