HeArt

I recently took part in an art swap where the remit was to make a heart using recycled or reclaimed materials...

So I grabbed an empty cornflakes box and a marker pen and roughly drew a heart shape and cut it out with scissors. I used this as a template for another layer and I stuck the two together to strengthen and allowed it to dry.

At this stage I will admit I have no idea what I was going to do...so I grabbed the gesso and coated each side of my heart with white gesso and left that to dry... while I gazed around for items I could recycle to use in this project...

and I spotted a pile of pretty paper napkins on the shelf and among them was the plain white backing layer that I had removed from a napkin used in a previous project. It had a little texture around the edges but otherwise was really plain, so I took some archival ink and a grid stamp and randomly stamped over the tissue paper and then tore it into little pieces and added that to both sides of my heart and once again left that to dry...



The drying was time was really useful because it allowed me thinking/gathering time in between stages.

I knew I wanted to decorate both sides of the heart but I also realised I would need to add a string to hand it and so the reverse side needed to be fairly flat....and I needed to work on that side first.

By this time I had an idea of what I planned to do and I wanted a contrast between the two sides and decided to stick with monochrome on the reverse side. I added extra tissue to give more texture and stamped more of the grid onto the dried base. Then I chose the wording stamp (SU) and stamped it centrally before adding a heart frame using liquid pearls.

Once that was dry I could start on the front of my heart. I decided I wanted something pretty and I wanted there to be texture. I chose two stencils and applied texture paste through each one and left them overnight to fully cure.

It was at this point that I found some scrap red card and punched a heart. To this I added some white cotton mesh trim which I adhered to the red heart with gel medium. Once this was dry I trimmed it with scissors, leaving a little overhang all round.

Then it was time to add colour. I used a whole mixture of colourants including luminarte powders, brushos, distress paints and inks. I started with a generous dollop of gel medium and added the colour bit by bit, mixing as I went and using water spritz and tissues to blot and add layers of colour. When I was happy I set it aside to fully dry.

Now all was left was the finishing touches..I made up the teeny locket which had been lurking in my craft room for over two years (shame on me), sealing the image inside with gel medium and topping with a dome, I attached this to the heart and adhered the heart to the project.  I added liquid pearls to the flowers and around the edges of the heart  and used stickles shimmer to the butterflies and once I was happy I went around the edge of the heart on both sides with some diluted soot distress ink and then added the rescued ribbon to finish it all off.

I have been sitting on this project for a while because my swap partner was away and I wanted to be sure she saw the heart at her house before it appeared anywhere on-line.

That is it for now..my recycled heart has a new home.
Until next time,
Cxx