We’ve had our eye on this little project for quite a while but just couldn’t seem to get to it. We finally did. Along with “Big Red Lips” and “Mystery Man of the Tropics”, this is another fun art project inspired by and created with small cutoffs from other projects. The inspirational pieces that started the project were the central body part (an African Sapele piece cut away from our original pair of Circle Lamps made close to two years ago) and the 4 wing supports (curly maple pieces cut away from a thick maple slab lamp made even longer ago). Those pieces have been set aside for ages and only recently did we figure out how to bring them together. We used a piece of Sapele veneer left over from a small box project to form a support/body layer by cutting it down to echo the outline of the body and wing pieces. We then took four pieces of Hawaiian Koa veneer left over from a wonderful chest we made and shaped those into the wings themselves. Fortunately, we had a variety of colors for these and also had pieces with knot rings and even a knot opening to simulate the markings on butterfly wings.

To add a little color to the piece, we did an acrylic wash on the 4 wing supports in a purple-blue shade, and then finished the whole thing off with multiple coats of water based polyurethane in a satin finish. All of the layers are held together with wood glue, and the back has a hanger support already attached. All you need is a nail.

This butterfly is pretty big. Its wingspan is 28” tall x 13” wide x 1 1/2” deep.