People have always loved butterflies for their pretty, colorful wings and delicate beauty. Lately, lots of people are decorating their walls with butterfly art to add a fun, natural touch to their homes. You can find metal butterfly sculptures, butterfly pictures on canvas, and sticky butterfly shapes to put on your walls. There are many creative ways to use butterflies in your wall art.
In this article, I’ll talk about some of the most popular kinds of butterfly wall art and give tips on how to pick pieces that fit your own style. I’ll also share smart ideas for arranging and showing off your butterfly art to make any room look special. Keep reading to learn how to use butterfly wall art to make a happy, nature-inspired centerpiece in your home.
Large-Scale Metal Butterfly Sculptures
One way to make butterfly wall art really stand out is to hang up a big metal butterfly sculpture as the main focus of a room. These metal wall sculptures usually show colorful butterflies with their wings spread out like they’re flying. When you put a metal butterfly shape that’s two to three feet tall on a wall in your entryway, living room, bedroom, or office, it makes a big, bold statement.
You can find metal butterfly wall sculptures in lots of different colors and designs. Many people and decorators like butterfly wings that look bright and real. Metal sculptures that show the butterfly’s fragile wings, bold colors, and detailed patterns on the wings make an especially big impact. Sculptures made from strong, powder-coated metal can stay beautiful for many years if you take good care of them.
Hanging Multiple Canvas Butterfly Prints
To make a grouped, uneven arrangement, think about filling your accent wall by hanging several separate butterfly pictures on canvas. This lets you mix and match canvas prints in different sizes, colors, and wing patterns for a unique grouping focused on your favorite winged bugs.
When putting together a group of butterfly canvas wall art prints, odd numbers like three, five, or seven pieces usually look the best. Feel free to add a few flower prints or other nature-themed prints along with your butterfly artwork. Just be careful not to make your display too busy. For the best look, leave enough empty space around each print. This lets people focus on the detailed beauty of each butterfly picture.
When it comes to spacing, arrange your group of separate canvas prints so the bottom edges line up evenly for a tidy, put-together look. Mix up the spacing between each print to make it interesting and to give it a natural, outdoorsy style. Also, when hanging multiple separate butterfly canvas prints in one area, using the same print size looks neater than mixing very different sizes in one spot.
Vinyl Butterfly Wall Decals
Removable wall stickers make it easy to decorate your walls with colorful butterfly art. Vinyl butterfly stickers have bright colors that quickly catch your eye. Unlike framed art or wall hangings, smooth vinyl butterfly stickers lay almost flat on your walls. This lets them nicely match your other furniture without taking over the room.
When buying butterfly wall stickers, look at how thick the vinyl is and how rich the printed colors are. Thicker wall stickers around 4 to 6 millimeters usually have brighter, more photo-like pictures than thinner stickers. Good quality vinyl also means the wall stickers can handle regular cleaning, moving, or putting them on new walls as needed without getting messed up.
Vinyl butterfly wall stickers offer extensive possibilities for creative arrangements. Place a 16 inch or 20 inch vinyl butterfly decal on each of your accent walls for a pulled together theme. Or cover one focal wall with a cluster of assorted vinyl butterfly decals in a symmetrical or scattered design. For the most accurate application, use a wall decal positioning tool. Once your butterfly decals adhere properly to the wall, the slight shadows and dimensionality make them appear to be realistically flying around the room.
Wooden Puzzle Piece Butterfly Wall Sculptures
For a playful approach with an interactive element, wooden puzzle piece butterfly wall sculptures offer handmade, customizable appeal. Skilled artisans shape and decorate the wings, antennae and body pattern from individual pieces of wood. Purchasing an unfinished butterfly puzzle kit allows you to stain, paint and decorate the pieces yourself according to your personal vision. Or opt for a finished butterfly puzzle ready to mount as soon as you assemble the pieces by slotting them together.
Unlike stiff, industrial materials like metal, natural wood offers an organic, eco-friendly foundation for butterfly wall sculptures with flowing, graceful forms. When viewed up close, the visible wood grain textures enhance the butterfly’s vividness. Hang your custom wooden butterfly on the wall only after you complete the puzzle and connect all the pieces into their fascinating final shape. Invite visitors to gently remove your butterfly from the wall to rearrange the segments themselves if they wish.
Wing Mural Graphics
Some home decorators dream of splashing their walls with extra large butterfly wing murals as the ultimate embellishment for a nature-oriented environment. Modern digital printing processes allow mural printers to recreate the remarkable colorations and vein patterns found in real butterfly wings at oversized scales for maximum impact. Special adhesive backing makes the high quality vinyl graphics simple to mount as removable wall murals. This allows you to take the striking images with you if you move.
Vibrant butterfly wing murals printed across multiple wall panels create focal points sure to prompt awe and admiration. The most common placement for butterfly wing murals extends across the full expanse of an accent wall from floor to ceiling. Tropical butterfly wings with intense turquoise, violet and chartreuse colors pop visually against muted brown and white color schemes elsewhere in the room. Alternately, opt for regal monarch or swallowtail butterfly wings featuring more subtle cream, black and burnt orange hues for a formal parlor atmosphere.
Classy Framed Butterfly Specimens
Another way to celebrate butterflies through your wall art is to frame real preserved butterflies in shadow boxes. Getting butterflies from sources that collect them ethically helps limit damage to the environment. When framed the right way, the see-through quality of real butterfly wings shows a special beauty that even the best photo copies can’t match.
Next to each butterfly centerpiece, train your eye to appreciate the small wonders in details like the delicate vein patterns and tiny scales you can see when you look very closely. Show off your framed real butterfly specimens as separate artworks spread around the room. Or put several specimens together with other wall art in a mixed display above a couch, sideboard, or bed. For dramatic lighting effects, install LED strip lights above or inside the shadow boxes.
Tips for Selecting Your Style
The wide range of materials and design aesthetics available means securing butterfly wall art suited to your tastes requires some consideration. Assess the size, layout and existing décor of the intended display area along with your budget. This helps narrow down your most suitable medium, color scheme, size parameters and quantity based on your space and personal priorities.
Take stock of factors like the room’s typical lighting conditions, overall style and typical viewer sight lines before finalizing a concept. A matte finish better suits low overhead light compared to high-gloss pieces prone to glaring and reflections. Seek weatherproof, durable materials like coated metal and wood if mounting butterfly art outdoors. And consider sight lines to ensure shorter viewers appreciate your butterfly focal points, not just those well over six feet tall.
Strategic Display Ideas
A strategic butterfly wall art display does more than just impress the eye with captivating colors and designs. Clever placement and arrangement ultimately enhances your living space as a whole when incorporated thoughtfully. Keep these tips in mind as you plan an impactful butterfly accent wall that harmonizes beautifully with your existing furnishings and architecture.
- Highlight natural light. Position large metal butterfly sculptures or wing mural graphics on accent walls with windows. Radiant sunlight filtering across the butterfly’s surface adds alluring dimension and vibrancy. You can also add adjustable track lighting overhead to bathe your wall art in dramatic downlighting.
- Incorporate 3D depth. A tight, flat grouping of canvas butterfly prints tends to fall flat visually. Create contours and depth by affixing some prints slightly off the wall surface with thin spacers behind the edges. This makes them appear to hover and capture light differently.
- Empower focal points. Without adept scaling and placement suited to your room dimensions, a giant wing mural threatens to dominate the space in a disruptive way. Maintain an appropriate butterfly to background ratio so your eye still perceives negative space around images. This allows the wall art’s intricate details to emerge crisply.
- Align with architecture. The linear edges of most butterfly wall art sync up neatly with clean architectural lines. Place rectangular canvas prints or decals parallel above wainscoting or borders in the wall’s surface and materials. Consider a circular or oval butterfly focal point in rooms with curved architectural details.
Conclusion
Butterfly wall art offers a charming, uplifting way to celebrate natural shapes, colors and textures within your living space. Vibrant butterfly wings lift the mood while linking your home’s style with the wonder of the outdoors. Whether metal, vinyl, canvas or wood, quality butterfly artwork adds a lively accent sure to encourage joy and imagination with every glance. Elevate your wall décor to new heights by incorporating winged beauty through art arranged to best complement your home’s wonderful existing virtues. Soon a new flight of decorative fancy will take shape before your eyes.
FAQs
Some popular types of butterfly wall art include metal butterfly sculptures, canvas butterfly prints, vinyl butterfly decals, wooden butterfly puzzles, framed real butterfly specimens and large butterfly wing murals.
When selecting butterfly wall art, consider the size and layout of your space, your decorating style and color scheme, lighting conditions in the room, your budget, visibility and sight lines, indoor vs outdoor use and ease of installation.
Vinyl butterfly decals are made from flexible vinyl or PVC plastic, printed with colorful butterfly imagery. Quality vinyls range from 4-6mm thick for vivid photographic images. Decals have an adhesive backing for sticking to smooth walls and surfaces.
Skilled artisans hand-carve and shape the wings, body and other components of wooden butterfly puzzles from natural wood. Purchased kits can be stained and decorated before assembling the puzzle pieces by slotting them together. Hanging it completes the 3D wooden butterfly sculpture.
It depends on your preferences and the look you wish to achieve. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical arrangements can work beautifully. Grouping prints in odd numbers and scatter patterns often looks more organic. Mixing butterfly sizes and styles can also add standout visual interest.
