Valentine's Day Project

It's been a bit busy at my house, we have managed to replace our kitchen flooring, I reorganized and decluttered my kitchen, fixed a ton of items that were broken and had been waiting to be repaired forever, replaced a broken window covering and now am in the beginning process of repainting my oak cabinets as well as repaint my kitchen. It was time for a refresh.

Being that I was busy and watching kids full time my creativity side took a back seat until this past weekend when I unleashed the beast as they say.

I had admired this adorable bauble tree by Paula Cheney using some Tim Holtz items and I pursued my objects elsewhere except for the paper pad because I was smitten with that one for sure. I found these no hole pearls that came in a mix of 3 sizes and used them as a substitute to Tim's baubles.

So after I realized I had zero time to peruse this project any longer as Christmas had come and gone I was thinking a lot about birthdays and of course Valentine's Day. I then thought perhaps I could use this bauble idea as a heart rather than a tree and then I sat down and tried my hand at it.

I diecut a piece of chipboard and used that as my template, I then followed Paula's instructions and cut strips which I curled a bit to help them bend, I fit one inside my heart cutout and trimed it to fit, then cut a second piece. I found taping the two ends together with some double sided tape worked so that they could then make the V shape and again at the top to create the inverted V. I then diecut another piece of chipboard so I could use it as a stencil for the modeling paste and used my other piece to hold my heart shaped strips, otherwise they wouldn't hold their shape.

Here are my 3 templates.

As you can see that heart shape looks nothing like the diecut, so I inserted it into a second diecut heart to fill my pearls into. I found taping the edges on both templates helped them to keep from moving.

I tried various inks but alas the only thing that stuck was indeed alcohol inks and I used what I had on hand which I quickly realized was not in the colors I envisioned. In fact, after a bunch of trial and error I realized just dye the pearls and adding only some micro pearl was ok anything else left a chunky look to the pearls.

I bought a frame at Joann's that I painted only to find out I painted the back side instead of the front, so I then painted the front but the painting was horrible so I sanded it a bit to give it the shabby chic factor.

I also used some Martha Stewart glitter instead of Tim Holtzs because one the white was too transparent and two I liked the vintage look of MS. I also poured on my glitter ensuring it covered the outline of the heart, in hindsight I almost wonder if you could spinkle the glitter on the heart then glue the baubles on one by one, perhaps too tedious but definitely more control of the placement overall. As you can see I gave my heart more dimension than Paula's tree.

I glued on many baubles or pearls after my initial placement and left the left side a bit lower so I could add the flower. I also had to bleach my flower because it was pink and I thought the white just worked better in this situation. I also added a bit of extra glitter and used a banner across the heart.

The pp was from Graphic 9 and is about two years old, again just using what worked with the colors I could create with my alcohol inks. And not being happy my brain wants to try making these pearls with some looking glass spray paint but I want to have more pink than purple so I ordered 2 new inks that I hope will give me what I am working towards so stay tuned for a second heart bauble project.