I've been meaning to try my hand at butterflies. I loved making dragonfly wings (see 7/13/10 post), and decided to try making a butterfly cane or two. I wanted these to be able to be 3D to a certain extent, so did not encase them in translucent. The original shapes were over a couple inches wide, and I found reducing evenly to be a bit interesting.
So, here are my first butterflies. I made the monarch wing sections first. Then I made some lentils from slices of the wings, swirled them about, and placed a little butterfly on each. These were just the right size for pendants, so I put sterling bails on them.
Then I decided to make a yellow butterfly. It's not really a swallowtail, just yellow. I made a swirl lentil, then decided to play with a different shape. Here's what I came up with. I'm not sure what to call this shape - any suggestions?
Finally, I decided to make some lentils with flowers AND butterflies. Here are a few:
