Giant Wire and Gem Butterfly

I had a design instructor who used to say "Go big or go home!" all the time. It was a fun reminder to find ways to expand your ideas and bust your perceived limitations. Don't be timid with your art: Go big or go home!

Big is relative depending on whether you take a literal meaning or metaphorical meaning of the phrase. In this case, however, I wanted to go big, big (both meanings). I haven't worked with wire much, and I needed to expand my experience and get past my fears of making bigger art with it.

The biggest known butterfly in the world is slightly less than 12" wide (full wing span). I decided I could make something much bigger. I decided to do a profile view of a butterfly at 20" tall. The final design ended up being almost 22" tall. That's big! 

And I learned so much along the way. That's the point of going big. Let's dive in.

Materials

• Tracing paper
• 12 gauge wire (2 packs)
• 24 gauge wire
• Super Glue
• E6000
• Gems in a variety of colors and sizes

Tools

• Adobe Illustrator or other design program
• Printer
• Pen
• Scissors
• Scotch tape
• Jeweler's pliers (I used round-nose, chain-nose, and bent chain-nose pliers)
• Side cutter
• Hammer
• Bench block

My favorite butterfly is a Western Tiger Swallowtail. I see them all over where I live and have had several close encounters with them. They are just lovely and have that drippy looking tail that is gorgeous. Their wingspan can be almost 4 inches wide. 

I did a Google image search for a profile view of a swallowtail and found one with enough contrast in it to trace some basic lines from. I'm not making my butterfly realistic at all, but want some good lines to follow. 

I printed out the image in grayscale, put tracing paper on top and drew a very simple outline. Then I took that trace to draw out my more flourishy design with swirls and grand loops.

While I was creating my more fantastic design, I kept in mind: 

• I needed to be able to use several pieces of wire, so I wanted to have several start and stop points for my lines
• I wanted swirls at the ends of the wires to add embellishment and have points to attach each section
• I needed shapes that I could make easily with the wire without breaking it or kinking it

I made several drawings and finally decided on one that I could fix up in Illustrator. I took a photo of my drawing and placed it onto a 20" square in Illustrator. I then locked it and began tracing my lines with the pen tool using a thick stroke (no fill). I made a few adjustments to help the different pieces of wire go together more smoothly. I drew my lines in various shades of gray so I could differentiate between the pieces of wire.

An actual size PDF of the design is included below.

Printing a template

When I was satisfied with my design, I grouped all the lines, copied the whole thing, and pasted it onto a letter-sized document. 

I then printed all parts of it on 6 different sheets of paper and taped those together to create an actual size template to help me form the wire pieces. It wasn't a perfect replica of my design but I only needed a template to work with. 

Alternatively, I could have printed each wire section on a separate piece of paper (rotating them to get them on letter-sized paper) and printed a smaller version of the whole design as reference. Or I could have had it printed actual size somewhere but that is costly and time-consuming.

How much wire?

I didn't know how much wire I'd end up using so I bought two more 3-yard rolls of 12 gauge wire and two in 16 gauge. I already had a 12 gauge that was partially used, so I don't know how much I had total. I decided to play it safe and make the butterfly's body with the 16 gauge rather than trying to build the whole thing with 12 gauge (just in case I ran out). My local craft store only had two 12-gauge wire rolls, otherwise I would have bought more to try to make it all out of the same thickness.

As it turns out, I only needed one extra roll of 12-gauge to go with what I already had. I didn't even use all of the new roll I started. So, you should be fine to build yours with two rolls of 12-gauge. 

Start with the body

I started with the butterfly's body. I rolled out a long section of 16-gauge wire, straightening it with a soft cloth. To straighten it, you pull along the wire gently with the cloth wrapped around it. I did not cut any wire off because I didn't know how much I would need. I just unrolled more as needed, straightening it as I went.

I started at the tip of the left antenna, curled the end of the wire slightly around my finger to create the same curl in my drawing. Then I held down the wire with one hand on top of the template while I used my other hand to gently guide the rest of the wire along the lines, shaping it as I go. Shaping wire is more of a pushing and pulling between the fingers and thumb so as to keep it from kinking. You want gentle curves, especially now in the beginning stages of shaping it. 

When I got to sharper curves I would curl the wire around my fingers by lifting it, holding it over my finger and using my thumb or finger on my other hand to smooth the curve over. Then tighten the curve as needed by continuing the roll over my finger rather than pinching the wire. 

For the really tight curves just below the antennae, I did just pinch the wire backwards. These curves needed to be tight since I planned to wrap the thinner wire around this point later to hold the whole shape together.

When I finished the soft curve at the end of the right antenna, I cut the wire with my side cutters.

Wing sections

Next, I moved on to my 12-gauge wire to shape all the wing sections. I did the same as before, rolling off a long section, straightening it with a soft cloth but not cutting any until I was done shaping each section.

Each wing piece starts and ends with a swirl which serves two purposes. First, it adds a lot of flourish, which I love. Secondly, and more importantly, it adds points that allow me to connect each section without risk of the wrapped wire slipping off.

To create these swirls, use round-nose and flat or chain-nose pliers (see Diagram 1 above). Grasp the end of the wire with the round-nose pliers to begin the curl and rub your finger along other side of the wire to gently curl it around the end of the pliers. I'm not making tight swirls for this design because I want to conserve the wire I'm using. If I had more, I might go a little more loopy with my swirls. 

After forming my beginning swirls, I shaped the wire carefully by rolling my fingers along an edge, with another finger on the inside to keep from adding sharp kinks to it. I roll it around my fingers to make sharper curves or bend it sharply for the inside dips like on the top two sections.

Note that as you work, the wire will be warped and won't lay flat. As long as you get the general shape, you're good for now. We will be hammering it flat and reshaping as needed later. 

The wire shapes don't need to be exact. What's most important is that the pieces will all come together at the points we will wrap thinner wire around later. Because the pieces are big, we have a lot of wiggle room with the shapes and can re-form the pieces to fit together better if we need to.

My bench block is just a block of steel and doesn't have rubber feet, so I fold up a felt sheet and put that under it to soften the noise level. I used a regular hammer. For extra texture, you could use a ball-peen hammer to add dimples. 

I hadn't wire wrapped wire sections together before so this was a whole new learning experience for me. I have hammered out metal before, like in this Instructable I made of a dragonfly piece. 

When hammering, you want to move around the piece at a regular pace, maintaining the same movement and rotation so you can be sure you aren't flattening some areas more than others. You don't want to hammer out one area for too long or you might create a weak area that might break later. If you keep the depths relatively even, you can go back later to flatten other areas for a more dynamic look.

I wanted to create some areas that had more width than others, but I also knew I'd need the points where I would wire wrap later to be the same depth to create a stronger joint. But around the wing tips, some outward curves, and that tail dip, I wanted to create a greater width to add variety to the shape as a whole.

I decided there's a few ways I could go about this:

• I could hold the wire pieces together and use a Sharpie to mark where they will meet (thus where I would wrap the thinner wire later). I can clean the Sharpie marks off later with rubbing alcohol. 
• I could hammer everything evenly, connect all the pieces, and go back to hammer out the other areas flatter after the whole piece is put together.
• I could just play it safe around the parts I know will be connecting points and hammer out the wing tips and other points now. 

I started trying to mark the places where the sections would meet but that got to be difficult as they weren't going to maintain the same shape after being hammered out. So, then I opted for a combination of my last two ideas. I would hammer them mostly to the same depth with the intention of hammering out other areas after I pieced them together, and sometimes, when I knew for certain the area wasn't going to be wire wrapped, I would hammer those areas flatter.

As you hammer the pieces, they tend to curl upward. I flattened and reshaped some as I went but only slightly. I knew I'd need to rework the shapes when I wired them together so trying to rework them now would be mostly futile. Plus, the tail portion and the top tip of the wing would be OK to come out away from the wall after it's hung. 

I grabbed each wire piece one at a time, hammered them out, moving them around on my 4" bench block, and slowly flattened them all out. When I was done with a piece, I laid it on my table where it would go in the final piece to offer a reminder of my steady progress. This step takes a while and a lot of patience so getting a visual cue of progress was motivational.

So here we go with the new learning experience. We're putting all the pieces together. I learned a little about wire wrapping from this Instructable of a Crescent Moon Pendant by Muhaiminah Faiz.

My first attempts were frustrating because the thinner wire kept spinning around the bigger wire and wouldn't stay as I tried to wrap. I realized the flatter the section I was wrapping, the easier it was to wrap wire around the area (and hold it in place with chain-nose pliers). So I re-hammered the sections I knew I'd be wrapping wire around to make them flatter.

I cut 24-gauge wire pieces for wrapping about 4" long. I started a loop at the end of the wire by using my bent nose pliers (you could also use round-nose pliers) and bending the end to tuck under the bigger wire. I used my bent-nose pliers to hold the thin wire in place on the bigger wire while using my fingers to push it around. I made one full loop before beginning wrapping several loops around both sections I was connecting. That first full loop around one section would ensure a nice gap to keep the two pieces and keep them from overlapping as I wrapped the thin wire tightly around both. I stopped wrapping when I ran out of wire and cut it so the cut edge was on the back. I used my bent-nose pliers (you could also use regular flat pliers) to squeeze and crimp the thin wire down. 

The first pieces I attached were the butterfly's antennae on the body piece. Then I worked on the big 3-looped piece, first attaching the two swirls on that piece together, then attaching the whole piece to the body of the butterfly. I started with this piece because every other piece would attach to it. 

Then I moved on to the big top wing section. It would be the most difficult to attach because it has to attach at three locations. I knew I would have to reshape it to work. I wrapped the big dip in the middle to the top loop on the 3-looped section. Then I used my thumb and finger to gently arch the top of the piece up so the small loop on the left top side would attach more easily to the top left of the 3-looped piece. I wrapped those sections together. Then I attached the big swirl at the bottom between the top two loops of the 3-looped piece. I had to spread those loops apart a little to make this work.

With those big pieces attached, I moved on to all the other wire pieces starting from the small one that attached to the top wing and working my way down. I used my actual-size printout as a guide as I worked to make sure I was connecting all the piece correctly.

When I was done wire wrapping all the sections together, the whole piece took on the curve of a giant bowl. While I don't want it to be entirely flat against the wall when I hang it, I do need it to be flatter. 

I had a few ideas to remedy this situation:

• When I was hammering out the individual large wires, I noticed it curves up while you hammer it. I thought maybe I can flip the whole piece over and hammer lightly in the really warped areas to get it to come back down.
• I could maybe place a few pieces of wood on top to force it flatter. I'm not sure how long this will take or how flat it will be in the end.
• I could put the butterfly between a 24" square MDF piece I have and similarly sized metal square (used under my honeycomb base for my laser cutter) and use a rolling pin to press along the whole surface and hopefully get it to flatten. 

• Maybe something similar to the above but use wax paper or parchment paper on top so I can see if it's working.

So, I started with my first idea and just started tapping on sections both with the piece upside down and right side up. I didn't hammer very hard; I just wanted to ease the piece into shape. This plan worked wonderfully so I didn't even need to try the other ideas. There's a couple parts that still curve up, but I like the overall look, so I'm leaving them.

Putting on gems serves two purposes. The first and most important is to add sparkle! The second and most utilitarian but necessary reason is to cover up the places where I will attach metal rings that will hang on the nails in the wall. 

The piece is so lightweight, I really only need one nail to hang it, but it needs to be strategically placed to take gravity into account. That, or I'll need to place two rings to make sure it hangs the way I want. 

Before I glue on any hanging rings or gems, I need to test if I need one hanger or two. So, I put a nail in the wall and start hanging my butterfly from various swirls to see what happens.

It only took a few attempts to find the perfect spot to hang the piece on one nail. A couple spots that seemed like they might work caused the whole thing to flip upside down! This is why we test first.

I marked the spot that worked with a thin-point Sharpie and took the piece off the wall. Then I marked the back side of that point because that's where the hanger will actually be attached.

Making a ring hanger

Now I know I only need to make one hanger to attach to my butterfly.

All rolls of wire you buy have that part you have to cut off because it's just too bent to use. However, I only needed a little bit to make the hanger, so I grabbed a couple of those pieces (I keep everything because you never know if it'll be useful later). I used the 12 gauge wire to give me the depth needed to hang over a nail head.

I used my bigger round-nose pliers and curled a piece of wire over the widest part to make an almost closed circle. I cut it with my side cutters and used my bent-nose pliers as well as my chain-nose pliers to close up the circle. I'm not worried about it not being perfectly round or coming together completely since it will be hidden on the back. I made two rings like this. 

Then I hammered them just a little to create a flatter (and therefore better) gluing surface. They opened up a little when I hammered them, so I used my pliers to close them up again. To be safe, I will leave the split ends pointing down when I glue them to the back of my butterfly. This will keep the nail from slipping through the split.

I used Super Glue to glue the two rings together. The trick to not gluing your fingers to these tiny little rings is to use pliers to hold them and put them together. I dropped very small amounts of Super Glue on the lower ring (avoiding the pliers). Then I readjusted my pliers to hold the ring around the side edges while using my other pliers to pick up the other ring and drop it on top. Then to make certain my pliers didn't get glued to the rings, I kept grasping the two rings on top and bottom and rotating them around between the pliers so they never touched the surface more than a few micro-seconds at a time.

Next, I put a couple drops of Super Glue on the back of the butterfly where I had marked earlier and used my bent-nose pliers to place the hanger in that spot. It didn't want to stay put at first so I used my fingernail to hold that section of the butterfly down flat and a fingernail on my other hand to hold the hanger in place. I held the hanger there a few seconds and then the glue took hold. I waited a couple minutes, then added a few more drops of Super Glue around the edges for an added layer of grip.

Gluing on gems

Now the real challenge begins: choosing the gem colors. I have a variety to work with. I know I want bright colors so they'll show up against the off-white wall. I pick a set of purple, turquoise, lime, and pink, plus some extras I had.

The glue stickers on the backs of most gems you get are great for paper projects but won't work for this project, so I had to peel them all off.

Before gluing anything down, I placed several gems on some of the swirls to find an arrangement that works. I made sure to use one of my largest ones to put over the spot that will cover the nail and hanger. I placed a few in other locations to test. When I created an arrangement I liked, I started picking them up one by one, squeezing a couple drops of E6000 on the wire where they were, and putting them back in place. I held each for about 10 seconds and moved on to the next. You can't use Super Glue with gems because it dulls the surface. 

When I was done gluing, I let them dry. The gems and hanger need to cure overnight.

With the gem covering the hanger now, I needed to hammer my nail in a little more to leave just slightly more than 1/8" hanging out. Then I hooked the hanger on the back of my butterfly over it and let gravity take hold.

This was a really fun project and a terrific learning experience. I love how the butterfly looks hanging on the wall. It's final size is about 22" tall and 19" wide. It's definitely the largest metal project I've worked on.