How to DIY Butterfly Decor to Delight Guests and Bring A Wonderful Welcome to Your Front Door

Butterflies are such a popular decor item, particularly in the outdoors and during the warm summer months. I just had to do something all around my front door this year, since I still think back to that dreamy wisteria decorated front door I did a few spring seasons ago. If you never saw that one, you really should visit and see what I did! This year, however, it is a spring season all about butterflies! Did you see the fun butterfly wreath I made?

Colorful butterflies fluttering around my front door are just perfect for springtime! Butterfly decorations aren’t just for indoors this time of year!

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How to make the base:

I purchased two 8 foot long trim pieces from the Home Depot. I just purchased the least expensive pieces that I could find that had a flat side on one side.

Floral foam blocks from Dollar Tree were just the right size for cutting down for this project.

I then had three pieces that looked like this photo above.

Next, I cut each third in half. I had six pieces out of each block. I used one block of foam for each of the sides of my front door.

Spacing the blocks out fairly evenly down one of the 8 foot pieces of trim, I glued them onto the trim with LOW TEMP hot glue.

Decorate the bases:

I always stock up on lots of this garland from Dollar Tree when it is in season. If you don’t have any of this, you can substitute an extra length of the faux boxwood I used.

With my floral pins (also known as “S” pins or “greening pins”) I secured the Dollar Tree garland to the floral foam rectangles all the way up and then back down the length of the trim piece.

My garland covered a lot of the trim and the floral foam pieces. The next step was to use two pieces of faux boxwood garland and secure it to the foam in the same way, with the same pins. I only needed to use two of the boxwood garlands, because I had the Dollar Tree garland, but you may need to use three of the boxwood garlands.

Attaching the pieces:

Everyone’s home is different, but I have full length shutters on either side of my front door. Instead of putting a nail into my woodwork, (which my husband will absolutely NOT allow), I chose, (well, I was kind of stuck with this option!) to attach my trim pieces to the shutters. Pipe cleaners did a perfect job of that! It was easy to just tighten this pipe cleaner right around the trim and the greenery.

I attached an extra pipe cleaner to the top of each piece of trim. Those allowed me to drape an extra piece of boxwood over the top of the door.

My trim pieces look quite lush with the boxwood on them! I used a second pipe cleaner halfway down to secure my pieces of trim. Onto the fun part!!

Time to decorate:

I used the same butterflies that I used on my Butterfly Wreath! The butterfly wings will have to be unfolded, but it is very easy to do! These are not paper butterflies, these come in a variety of colors made for using outdoors, so they are fairly weather resistant. I cut the wire stems on each of these down to about five or six inches and then began sticking them into the foam.

Even though the foam pieces are random along the trim, by using the wires, I was able to fill in all along the garlands, not just where the foam was.

I added LOTS of butterflies! I think they look lovely! What do you think? I think my outdoor display turned out beautiful!

The bright colors look great on my blue front door.

Supplies for this project:

Wood trim (pick up at your local big box store)
Faux Boxwood Garlands
Faux Butterflies
Styrofoam blocks

If you want to add some more butterfly decor to your front porch, check out this lovely coir butterfly door mat from Grandin Road.