Beaded Butterflies

I debated whether or not to include these in my "back to beading" posts, but I figured they needed a post all of their own. They're just so beautiful *sniff*. Why did I start these? I don't remember. Most likely because I wanted to do more bead embroidery again and I figured a butterfly would be something easy and pretty to start with. I originally planned to have one butterfly done in all colors of the rainbow (plus pink and white), but I guess the butterfly was too small to have all the colors included if I wanted to have the "blended" look, so it ended up stopping at the color green. Which I was fine with, because that meant I could make another butterfly, with the cool tones (blues and purples. I mostly free-hand drew the butterflies onto the felt, and glued on sparkly black gems for the body. The first butterfly turned out well enough that I went ahead with the second butterfly. I needed some way to display them (that wasn't jewelry) so I decided to mat and frame them. I bought some cheap-o frames at Walmart, but I couldn't find any black ones so I bought some gray ones instead and painted them black. Then I cut the mats using white paper and I painted it with them same chromatic shading I used in the butterflies. After I matted and framed the butterflies, I added antennas using wire that I had to paint since I didn't have any black wire. Here are pictures of the progress of the butterflies, and the final result. I love them! They are hanging in the hallway upstairs.