Aubin Brian, of The Lost Luna, joined the Local Pop-Up community back in January. If you haven’t had the chance to stop by her tent at a market before, Aubin sells beautiful preserved and pinned insect displays and jewelry. After collecting butterfly wings for years, she decided she wanted a way to show them off. After messing with resin for a while to make earrings, she found many people wanted their own pair. From the earrings, she branched out to frames and domes. She learned how to preserve and pin butterflies from YouTube and from trial and error. Being self-taught, she admits to making plenty of mistakes, but it has only helped her grow into finding what works best for her.
When creating her domes and frames, she always thrifts her bases. She almost exclusively looks for candleholders, coasters, or old lamps that have a good base. She isn’t usually picky with how it looks, because she will end up painting the base if she doesn’t like the original color. From there, she chooses a butterfly that compliments the base and builds dried flower arrangements around that scheme. She states that she “never know[s] what the end result will be,” but it always comes together in the end. Serious “trust the process” type of situation.
Aubin loves playing outdoor beach volleyball, which is how she stays active. She also loves scoping out estate and garage sales, especially thrift/consignment stores in new cities. Aubin hopes to raise blue morpho butterflies by the end of the year. She is also trying to find ways to source more butterflies from the United States, so she has been trying to get in contact with LSU Agriculture to help with that.
Aubin initially started all of this for fun. After she got her process down, she started making jewelry for her friends and family, and it continued growing from there. She comments that she never thought she would end up making the large pieces of art she currently creates, “but [she’s] so blessed to be here.” She is constantly pushing herself to try new things and tries to incorporate new elements each month. Her newest element she’s working on right now are floral skull pieces, which she sources locally and cleans/whitens them herself. She’s hoping to have these skulls for sale by the end of the month, which you can find on her Instagram @the.lost.luna!
Local Supply will be hosting The Lost Luna on July 21st for her very first workshop with us! Come hang out with Local Supply and Aubin from 5-7PM to create your own butterfly dome that you will get to take home with you. There are only a few spots left, so run to localsupplybr.com to secure your spot for a night of learning something new.
