Christmas {lurve} Hearts

Hi Everyone, Leandra here

As you know this time last year out kitchen was in a bit of a pickle as the builders were trying to finish it in time for Christmas. Well today, as we were putting the Xmas tree boxes back in the loft, I stumbled across the box of hearts that used to adorn a wall in the kitchen pre-makeover. They are all various shades of white, wood, neutral tones, so I instantly decided to reinstate the wall of lurve!!

No biggie, started arranging the hearts on the table, with a few new additions, and realised there was one that did not work with the rest. It was a creamy buttermilk shade, almost lemon, and it just did not look right with all the rest. So just as Emma was leaving work tonight at 5ish, I started the heart makeover (never thought I would blog this, so didn't get a 'before photo').... but here is the end result. It only took me about an hour to do. I started by digging out the bag of bits I took with me to the Finnabair class I went to a couple of weeks ago, and I think this piece is certainly Finn inspired.

I just plonked various bits directly onto the wood using a heavy body gel medium. The bits were things like mechanical flowers by Prima, a timmy knob, and some random poppers/snaps. Also a few leftover beads from the discontinued PaperArtsy Bijouterie collection, a resin bird, and so on. Zapped that with a heat gun till the gel was more or less set-ish.

Next I gave it probably 3-4 coats of snowflake fresco, stippling it on, drying, adding a bit more and so on until it all looked pretty even. 

I knew it needed to be distressed, so I put the smallest spot of Taupe Fresco onto the craft sheet, and made that into a liberal puddle with about a teaspoon of water, then dolloped that all over, and dabbed off excess with a paper kitchen towel.

As the wall or lurve is a pretty neutral arrangement, I decided Pewter Treasure Gold was probably the most suitable, but I do think that on the light tone frescos the paler shades of TG look better. I used the tiniest amount of Pewter (which has a light gold thread running through it) using one of the smallest scruffiest flat brushes possible to just highlight the texture of the embellishments.

So all that remains is to gather the courage to nail about 15 hearts onto the pristine wall!

But how cool would this be to do some tree embellishments! OMG, mind boggling with the possibilities!