Frame with love

I began creating this piece whilst the Christmas season was in full swing but knew that it was likely to be used closer to Valentine’s day and therefor chose to focus on the words “with love” as these two simple words can mean so very much.

I started by painting the back of a wooden heart decoration bought from one of the very cheap home stores in the UK using Paper Artsy ® chalk paint in Irish Cream. The other side was stuck to a piece of paper from House of Roses  and once the glue was dry I used a scalpel to cut the excess paper away and then sandpaper around the edge of the heart to neaten the piece.   I then applied some Prima ® light paste through a Snipart mandala stencil damask rose   to add a layer of interest on top of the paper and again left it to dry naturally.

I created my own three dimensional accents using the long rose ornament mould  (two pieces) and the beautifully ornate heart frame mould  and airdry clay  I wanted the long rose mould to curve around the top of one side of my wooden heart, so I carefully moulded it in the curve I wanted before leaving the pieces dry completely. The texture on these pieces was then highlighted using Prima® icing paste in old gold. I cut one of the long ornament pieces apart to give me 2 swirls, 2 rose buds and the central big rose piece.

Whilst the clay was drying I chose my paper pieces – I used a frame from the Yesterday ephemera pack cutting off the outer part to leave me with an oval piece that I split in two. I then chose 3 tags and I topper from the vintage time A4 sheet 009 and layered them on top of each other using offcuts of cardboard to give dimension and leave space for embellishments to be tucked in. The paper pieces were then edged with Ranger® distress oxide in old paper and to tie the papers to the heart I distressed the edge of the wooden heart using the same ink and a sponge dauber.
I fussy cut the roses from the remains of the piece of paper I had used to cover the heart with so that I could balance the flowers on the right side of the heart.

The chipboard word “with love” ( this one is the nearest equivalent to the one I used the only difference being the absence of the heart which should not cause a problem as I have covered it with embellishments so the heart is not visible on the finished piece)  and frame were then embossed with Stampendous ® frantage aged rose embossing powder.

I adhered my cluster of papers to the heart and tucked the fussy cut flowers under the layers.  the intact long rose ornament was stuck in place as well as the heart frame and swirls before concentrating on making some briar roses and buds using white foamiran for the petals and lemon for the flower centres.

To make the flowers I used the smallest of  cherry blossom dies and I coloured the petals using a soft pink oil pastel and then used the distress oxide old paper to add colour to the centres. To make the flower centres you will need to cut a 1cm strip of the lemon foamiran from the short side of the foamiran sheet and then make tiny cuts in the long edge to create a frill. I divided the single strip in to 5 to make five centers. The fringed foamiran was then rolled up and glued at the bottom, squashing slightly to help the fringe spread out. I applied heat to the fringe to give it some texture and used the oxide ink to dull the colour a little so that it co-ordinated with the rest of the project.

The buds were made using the same die – petal 1 was folded together and glued – petal 4 was then brought around petal 1 and glued in place. Petal 2 was then lifted and glued in place followed by petal 5 and then 1. The edges of the bud were coloured with a soft pink oil pastel.

 To add another layer of texture I used some of the pink bush stamens and matt heart stamens. The pink bush stamen was divided into approximately 3 pieces and added a few of the matt heart with hot glue.

With all the pieces made I added them to the project to create a look that I found visually pleasing. As flowers do not exist in nature without greenery I broke apart some of the fern fronds and tucked these under the flowers before adding some word stickers so that the piece had real meaning for me.

To add some more interest to the background I stencilled some dots using the old paper distress ink and Snipart bubbles stencil.

I had intended hanging my heart up but as I had covered one of the holes with the paper clay mould added I adhered the heart to the wood paper from the paper pack Hugs and Roses by Lemoncraft® and then placed the piece in a wooden box frame. To tie the frame to the heart I used the damask rose stencil used earlier and the old gold paste to add details to the corners of the frame and then softened the affect of the paste by brushing gently over it with my fingers so that it looked weathered.

In my work I've used:

 

  

 

 

 

 

Have a nice day!

Gill Humphrey