Enchanted Butterfly: A Colorful Design Journey
Follow the design of our Enchanted Butterfly greeting card through five prototypes, colorful experiments, and a few unexpected challenges as I explore how glitter paper and negative space can bring a butterfly to life.
From Tulips to Butterflies
In early June 2026, I had just finished designing my Tulips in Purple greeting card. I spent a day experimenting with different colors for the tulip design before finally settling on purple, and I was eager to create another design using negative space.
I was exploring new ways to use paper in my artwork. Inspired by stained glass and mosaics, I began experimenting with how I could cut, arrange, and layer individual pieces of paper to create larger images. I was especially interested in how the space between pieces could help define shapes and details.
The Red Cardinal on Pine Bough, Lucky Four Leaf Clover, and Tulips in Purple greeting cards were all part of that exploration. With each design, I experimented with different shapes, colors, and arrangements, gradually developing a design language of my own.
I decided to try a butterfly.
Designing the Enchanted Butterfly
Butterflies have a simple and distinctive silhouette, which makes them an appealing subject for my paper art. Their wings give me room to experiment with different patterns without losing what makes the shape instantly recognizable.
The challenge was deciding how to divide the wings into individual paper pieces without losing the butterfly's distinctive shape. Their wings can be rounded, pointed, or scalloped along the edges, and the patterns within them can be remarkably intricate.
How far could I break apart the wings before the design stopped looking like a butterfly? Could I use negative space to separate the individual pieces and still have them read as a continuous wing? How much space could I leave between the pieces before the overall shape began to fall apart?
The upper wings are larger and broader, giving more room to experiment with individual shapes, so I divided each side into four pieces. I then added another detail to the outer corner of each wing: a smaller teardrop shape nested inside the larger piece.
For the lower wings, I repeated the teardrop detail in the outer corners, creating a consistent pattern across all four wings and drawing on the symmetry I had observed in nature.
With the digital design finished, it was time to follow one of my most important Studio Rules: Just Make the Card. This rule reminds me that there comes a point when working on the screen stops giving me useful information and I need to see it in paper so I have something physical to evaluate, even if it turns out badly. Especially if it's bad. I can see what works, what doesn't, and what needs to change.
First Butterfly
The first butterfly card was an experiment in color and shape. I selected glitter paper in purple, green, gold, blue, and pink to see how the different colors would work in the individual wing sections.
Once the pieces were assembled, I could see that the negative space was doing its job, for the most part. The individual shapes remained distinct, and together they still formed a butterfly, but with so much going on, I really had to work to see the shape of the wings.
My eye kept jumping between the purple upper wing sections, the gold details, and the hot pink lower wings. That poor pink paper. It looks fabulous on the full sheet, but every time I put it in a design, it manages to get itself voted off the card. So far, Strawberry Splendor Birthday Cake is its only success story. But I'm not giving up on it. That pink paper will have its moment.
Clearly, the colors were competing for attention. I made some notes directly on the card about which colors I would change to help distinguish the upper wings from the lower wings.
Looking at the first prototype, I also noticed that the small teardrop circular outlines in the outer wing sections were too thin. I went back to the digital design and made them thicker, then decided to use gold glitter paper for the revised circles.
Version 2: A Look at Color
For the second prototype, I moved the purple to the outer corners of all four wings, moved the gold sections in the upper wings, and tried using light green and light blue glitter paper.
What Worked
The combination of purple and gold worked really well together. The deep purple gave the outer wings a rich color, and the sparkling gold added warmth and contrast. The two colors complemented each other, making the individual wing sections stand out without overwhelming the butterfly's shape.
Moving the gold sections higher in the upper wings made a noticeable difference. The gold created a bright band beneath the purple outer corners, drawing attention to the broad shape of the upper wings and helping distinguish them from the smaller lower wings.
What Failed
I tried light green and light blue glitter papers for the teardrop centers, but neither color worked with the purple and gold. The lighter colors didn't create the rich contrast this butterfly needed.
Using the same light green glitter paper in both the upper and lower wings created another problem. The green visually connected the two sets of wings, making it difficult to distinguish the upper and lower wings. Instead of helping define the butterfly's silhouette, the color made the wings blend together.
Version 3: Experimenting Without Glue
For the third prototype, I decided not to glue the paper pieces down. Getting the spacing between all those individual shapes just right takes a lot of work, and I wanted the freedom to move pieces around as I experimented with color arrangement.
What Stayed
The gold sections in the upper wings and the purple outer corners with their gold rings and blue centers. Those were my favorite elements from the second prototype.
What Got Tested
I tried darker greens and blues, including reversing the colors in the outer corners of the lower wings. Instead of purple surrounding blue, I tried deep blue surrounding purple, keeping the gold rings between them.
What Worked
The deep blue, gold, and purple combination was gorgeous. The gold ring created a sparkling border between the two saturated colors, making the purple center look almost like a little gemstone set into the wing.
What Failed
The butterfly's overall shape was getting lost. The purple sections running horizontally through the middle interrupted the flow of the wings, and the different colors made the individual pieces compete for attention. Up close, it was difficult to tell I was looking at a butterfly at all. The colors were beautiful, but they weren't working together to create a cohesive silhouette.
Version 4: Finding the Shape in Color
For the fourth prototype, I returned to the purple outer wing sections and started organizing the remaining colors to give the upper and lower wings more distinct identities.
What Stayed
By this point, I wasn't willing to give up the purple outer corners or the gold details. They gave the butterfly some of its richest color combinations, and I wanted to build the rest of the wings around them.
What Got Tested
This time, I concentrated the greens in the upper wings and moved the blues into the lower wings. I used darker green along the inner upper wings, with lighter green beneath the gold bands. For the lower wings, I paired light blue with a darker blue, mirroring the green placement. I also returned to purple outer corners, this time with green centers inside the gold rings.
Finally, the upper and lower wings were beginning to look like two distinct sets of wings! Keeping the greens together on top and the blues together on the bottom helped define their shapes. Using darker shades near the body and lighter shades farther out also gave the wings more depth, allowing the individual sections to work together instead of competing for attention.
What Failed
The green teardrops in the lower wings.
My brain simply could not accept the mismatch between the blue centers in the upper wings and the green centers in the lower wings. I wanted the details to feel consistent across all four wings, and those green teardrops kept throwing everything off.
One Last Color Change
By the fifth prototype, I was happy with almost everything. The green upper wings, blue lower wings, purple outer corners, and gold details were finally working together. There was just one thing left to change.
The green teardrops had to go.
I cut and placed blue glitter paper teardrops over the green ones to match the centers in the upper wings. I still hadn't glued anything down. I wanted to see the complete color arrangement before committing to positioning and attaching all those individual pieces.
Finally, all four corners had the same purple, gold, and blue combination I loved.
With the colors settled, I was ready for Michael's editorial review. He really liked the color combinations and the placement of the individual pieces, but his eye caught something I had overlooked. The antennae looked like they'd been plucked right off the butterfly's head.
So, I went back into the digital design and connected the antennae to the butterfly's head. I also took the opportunity to fix the teardrops. The shapes in my original drawing were slightly irregular, so I recreated them as vectors to give them smoother curves and more consistent proportions.
Catch Your Own Enchanted Butterfly
You don't need a butterfly net to catch this one!
Our Enchanted Butterfly is ready to land in someone's mailbox, bringing a little color, sparkle, and a handwritten message along for the ride. Or keep one for yourself. Frame it as a little piece of original paper art to enjoy every day.
Find the Enchanted Butterfly greeting card in our shop and send one fluttering off to someone you care about.
Mainely Yours,
Shannon
