I'm making this, for a birthday part on Saturday, my question is it's for 25-30 people. Do you think if I do 2 or 12" cakes that will be enough?

Look at the butterflies in my photos. Each wing is a 2 layer 10inch cake that was shaped. The full butterfly was 2 put together. It was PLENTLY for 30 and beforehand I was stressing about numver of servings and whether I needed to add cupcakes.

Your black and blue butterfly looks great. I wish I could do that. Did you freehand the butterfly? (cutout and design)

For the butterfly template, I traced the bottom of my 10 inch pan onto posterboard and cut it out. From that circle, I shaped the wings. I uploaded another picture for you so you can see the structure without frosting. You can kind of see the templates in the pic.

i have 3 12" low layers. thought of doing the betty crocker one but the is really no middle. So then I was thinking of doing a freehand cut out. I'm just scared to do that.

Just make a paper template (make 2 identical) so you can carve the wings. Torte all 3 cakes so you have 6 total layers and divide them into 2 so you have 2 circles with 3 layers each. Then fill the full 12" circles and then carve based on your template. Use a scrap piece to create the body. The construction is the easy part, the decoration is what overwhelmed me.