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Ring of butterflies shadow box SVG

Eleven butterflies in a round window, ten of them flying in a ring round one large one: a round of light at the back, a ring of five small plain butterflies, a large lacy butterfly in the middle, and a ring of five larger butterflies with veined wings at the front. 4 sheets of card, cut and stacked with a gap between each, make the picture. The files are free, and every part of the scene can be moved, swapped or resized below before you download.

Ring of butterflies shadow box: 4 layered sheets seen from the front

Download the SVG files

4 sheets at 8 × 8 in, zipped, with a note on putting them together.

Free for personal and commercial use, no sign-up. What you can do with it.

The 4 sheets

Sheet 1 is the back and sheet 4 is the front. Each one is a single piece with the same frame round its edge, so they line up when stacked. The colours shown are the “Blossom” set; cut them in any card you like. Cut sheet 2, “Far ring”, the slowest: at 0.8 mm it has the thinnest part in the scene, and sheet 4, “Near ring”, fills the most of the view, 51% of it.

Sheet	What is on it	Narrowest part	Seen from the front
1. Light	A whole sheet with holes for: Plain disc	over 2 mm	17%
2. Far ring	Frame only, with: 2 × Butterfly silhouette, Simple butterfly with teardrop wings and 2 × Swallowtail butterfly silhouette	0.8 mm	11%
3. Lacy butterfly	Frame only, with: Lacy butterfly	1.7 mm	10%
4. Near ring	Frame only, with: 2 × Monarch butterfly, 2 × Classic butterfly with open wings and Simple butterfly with teardrop wings	1 mm	51%

Measured from the files at 8 × 8 in. The narrowest part is the thinnest neck of card that holds anything on; sharp tips are not counted. “Seen from the front” is the share of the picture that sheet fills once the sheets in front of it are in place.

Will it cut at your size?

The download is 8 × 8 in. The scene maker above makes the same scene at any of these sizes; the thinnest part scales with it.

Frame opening	Each sheet	Narrowest part	Depth needed	Fits a 12 × 12 in mat	Rule of thumb
6 × 6 in	152.4 × 152.4 mm	0.6 mm	14 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
20 × 20 cm	200 × 200 mm	0.8 mm	14 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
8 × 8 in	203.2 × 203.2 mm	0.8 mm	14 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
23 × 23 cm	230 × 230 mm	0.9 mm	14 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed
25 × 25 cm	250 × 250 mm	1 mm	14 mm	Yes	Fine detail: sharp blade, slow speed

Depth needed allows 3 mm of foam between sheets and 5 mm for the card itself and the backing.

Making this one

Six kinds of butterfly are used. The ten on the two rings fly the same way round, and each runs into the round frame with its outer wings, so each ring is one piece with its frame and nothing in it is loose. The lacy butterfly in the middle is about 10 cm across at 8 inches and hangs from the top of its sheet on one thread of card about 1.6 mm wide, behind a butterfly of the front ring. Its lace is about 1.7 mm at its finest. The small butterflies of the far ring are the fine cutting, at about 0.8 mm, and the front ring is about 1 mm: cut both slowly with a sharp blade. In the Blossom colours it runs from pale pink to plum.

Cut all 4 sheets from 160 to 220 gsm card at the same size.
Lay them out in order, sheet 1 at the back.
Put strips of 3 mm foam tape round the border of sheet 1 and press sheet 2 onto it with the edges level. Carry on to sheet 4.
Fit the stack into a deep frame with the front sheet against the glass. For a light box, run a strip of warm white LEDs round the inside of the frame behind the stack.

The zip includes these steps as a text file, each sheet as its own SVG and all 4 side by side in one SVG. More on paper, frames and lights is on the shadow box page.

The parts, on their own

Everything in the scene comes from the free SVG library, where each has its own page and file:

Questions

Can I cut it by hand?

Yes, with patience. The far ring is plain silhouettes, but the lacy butterfly has two rows of small cells in every wing and a line of dots along its border, and the butterflies of the front ring have cells between their veins. For an easier one, select the lacy butterfly in the maker, choose Swap and pick the butterfly silhouette.

How is this different from the other butterfly scenes?

It has no garden in it: the butterflies are the whole picture, in a round window. The Butterfly garden scene has butterflies over a border of sunflowers, tulips and daisies, and the Butterflies and blossom scene has one large butterfly resting on a daisy beside a blossom tree.

Can I sell boxes I make with it?

Yes. Finished pieces are yours to sell. The files themselves may not be sold or shared; send people to this page. See the licence.

More shadow box scenes

All scenes and the scene maker