A Matter of the Heart

sarahandbendrix

I've been admiring these little folded paper heart pictures, available on Etsy here and here.

sarahandbendrix

This week, I looked over at my surprisingly large pile of paint sample chips, and thought... why not try my hand at making my own version?

I had a search online for a heart-shaped hole punch that would prevent me from having to cut up little hearts freehand, and found this one for $2.79 on Ebay, with $1.99 postage. Done!

It arrived really quickly, so I narrowed down my selection of paint chips...

And then got to work punching.

Before I got too far though, I needed to decide what frame I was going to put my new artwork into. This wall of frames (see more about my gallery walls here and here) already has a few heart shapes represented.

My Croatian necklace, hung up in the shape of a heart...

And the photo I took of the main road in the Roman Forum, with a space between paving stones that was shaped like a heart.

So I turned to the opposite wall, which is clearly in need of some heart treatment.

I decided to steal this frame, with a photo of Tom standing atop a hill in Greece at sunset (see here for that adventure). As with a few of the photos I've printed from our European holiday, it doesn't look its best in black and white, so the photo has just been a place-holder until I find some better art.

I pulled the glass out from the frame, and started lining up all of my little hearts on top of it. If I was aiming for perfection it would have been smart to some paper with grid lines on it underneath the glass, so I could line the hearts up properly, but I decided to eyeball it and hope for the best.

I realised that I'd overcrowded the glass a bit at first, so scrapped the top row and right column, and was much happier with this more spaced-out look.

And then it was time to consider how I was going to adhere the little hearts to the glass! I wanted a slightly 3D look, so decided to pop them on the outside of the glass so they didn't get squished behind it. I have very limited craft supplies, so the only glue I have on hand is wood glue from when I repaired our cane dining chairs, which seemed a little inappropriate for this task.

But then I realised that I had some double sided tape in the drawer!

I cut it into teeny tiny pieces...

Folded each heart in half vertically, and stuck the tape to the back of each heart (sorry about the blurry photo).

And then I stuck each heart to the glass. You can clearly see the black tape underneath each heart from this angle.

After about twenty minutes, they were all in position. Facing the hearts front-on, you can't see the tape at all.

Then it was a simple matter of popping the glass back in the frame. I actually just turned the photo of Tom around, because it was printed on white paper, so it formed a nice plain white background. I might even be able to switch it out for some patterned (or maybe plain black?) paper later on if I feel like it, to change the look.

It seems to fit in nicely with the surrounding frames...

And has a nice subtle look from a bit further away.

So that's my nice and simple new addition to my gallery walls! I can't wait to start switching out a few of the other not-really-perfect photos for some more artwork!

br />

br />