Tuesday's Tutorial - "Deck of Hearts"

Good evening all! Hope the week is going well for all, so far...it is only Tuesday I suppose. ;)

The project I am going to go through today is a slight spin-off from a piece I saw on...wait for it...Pinterest.  Never would have guessed that would you? 

The original piece I saw was made from paint chips from a home improvement store, mine is made from playing cards. Have a gander...

This was a pretty easy project from start to finish.  The only issue I ran into was finding paper that was thick enough for the hearts.  I started out using vintage sheet music but it was so thin and flimsy that it sort of warped when I stuck it to the adhesive dots (I will get to that in a minute). For now, let us please have a moment of silence for the vintage, an totally un-reusable sheet music.............I hate to waste good vintage paper. 

So, to start out, I gathered my supplies which consisted of: A heart shaped paper punch ( you could use any shape to your liking though), playing cards, scissors, "ZOTS 3-D adhesive dots", A thick piece of watercolor paper, a ruler and finally a shadow box frame.

The first thing I did was punch out all of my hearts. I wasn't sure how many I would actually use, so I just kept punching away! It actually becomes kind of addictive to punch all of these shapes, I almost couldn't stop!  

Next thing I did was decide how big of an area I wanted to fill. Since my frame was a square 12 x 12, I knew I needed to keep it a square shape. I decided on 9x9, to leave a bit of the background visible to give it more depth. After that was done, I lightly drew some lines to give myself an idea of where I wanted to place the hearts.

As you can see above, when I said lightly, I meant it. I didn't want any pencil markings left behind. 

Once I had everything lined up, I started applying the adhesive dots. These things are an absolute godsend. They were easy to work with and they have some serious sticking power. If you want to pick some up, I found mine at Hobby Lobby and they are called "ZOTS Singles 3-D Adhesive Dots". For this project I used 1/2", but they had additional sizes as well. 

You may be able to tell from the above picture that there are clear squares around the circle shapes. Those are just the backing. I left them on there until I was ready to place the hearts because, like I said above, they have serious sticking power. You will need to remove these, obviously, prior to sticking anything on them. 

Once I got the dots where I wanted them, I erased the remaining pencil lines. 

***NOTE: I have recently fallen in love with my Sharpie Liquid Pencil. This pencil is great. It's erasable like a pencil (even better than a regular pencil, in my opinion), but you don't have to worry about broken lead, or sharpening because it literally works like a click pen. ***

Anywhoo...Just about finished now! Once I had all of my hearts stuck in place, I attached the finished piece to the velvet background of the shadow box frame with more ZOTS. (So far so good, as far as it staying in place.) I wanted to give a 3-D effect to the whole piece, I didn't want to secure it flat to the background. I felt like it would take away from the whole 3-D thing I was going for. So that is why I chose to use the ZOTS dots (that rhymes!), but you could choose to do it differently. It all about you!

And there you have it! I actually love this piece. I can't wait to find a special place for it to hang. But, for now, it sits on my desk as a reminder of what I am capable of and why I love being creative. :) 

Let me know what you think! Shoot me an email, or comment here...feedback is always appreciated!

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Check back often, I have some ideas in the works that may involve a giveaway or two!! (Who doesn't love fee stuff?!?)

What A Pretty Little Re-purpose

Good day to all, hope it's going well for you!  Whilst in the garage/studio yesterday, I came across a project that I started about...oh...maybe a year ago.  It wasn't like it was a big, complicated thing either...I just never got around to finishing it! Ahhhh, I tell you...I have GOT to get my procrastination under control.

Anyway, I figured I would go ahead and finish it here and let you see the tale end of what I had done and explain the rest.  I want to make more, that's all I can say.  Here's the rundown:

About a year ago, I was perusing the bins at the Goodwill Outlet and came across this tacky little wooden sort of frame/shadow box. I can't really explain it because I don't know myself what it really was.  At any rate, as soon as I turned it on it's side I realized I had to have it. It was made from old yard sticks!

Seriously, how awesome is this? And so easy to make I am sure! Moving on...next I covered the really, really, really tacky image of country ducks in dresses and bonnets up with a pretty and simple scrapbooking paper. I knew I wanted it to look like the sky but no so obviously so.

Next, I crafted some flowers out of old scrap wire that I had lying around (doesn't everyone have that?) and a gear for one flower head, and a flower brad for the other one. Glue gun at the ready, I attached the flowers to the bottom with a bit of hot glue.

After letting the glue dry (i.e. searching furiously for my bag of moss), I cut up some natural moss and glued it along the base of the inside, thereby covering any glue from the flowers too.

Note: If you are going to attempt something like this, a word of advice...put down some newspaper or another type of covering because the moss makes a huge mess!  (Note to self as well...I learned the hard way.)

Now, for the finished product...as always, let me know what you think and please, leave me comments!

Hope everyone has a great rest of the day! I am off to tend to these strange, obnoxiously loud beings that I call my children! :)