Watercolour Me Happy

Pinterest Project #2 was to make my own take on State Art.

 

This was so easy it took me about 30 minutes to make all 3, and I'm a terrible artist so if I can do it, anyone can!

 

I got some canvas paper and watercolours then printed out basic map outlines of 3 places important to me, mainland Britain, the Dominican Rebublic, where we got married and Florida, where we honeymooned.

 

I copied the rough map outlines onto the paper, got a punched heart (so that when it was removed it would leave a clean white heart) to cover the cities where we live , wed, and honeymooned then filled in with the watercolour paints, finishing off with a little paint splattering to make it look like the messy nature of the painting was on purpose... unfortunately it made a bit of a mess of the carpet- hope hubby doesn't notice! Oops! Worth it though!

 

 

 

 

Now I just have to decide where to put them. We need to move to a bigger place, a little 2-bed flat just doesn't have enough space for all of my projects!

 

H is for...

I was in Hobbycraft a while ago and saw some unpainted paper mache letters for the bargainous price of £1.99. I decided that even if I screwed it up it wouldn't matter and I'd have fun trying. Thankfully I don't think I did screw it up and it sits pride of place in my living room!

 

 

I used a matching paper set called 'Sweet Pea' from Craftwork Cards, it ties in with our decor perfectly and it's just really pretty without being too girly.

 

Each 'leg' of the H is decorated with a different pattern and embellishment. There's a flower and 'ribbon' detail (which is actually card that I curled up a little).

 

 

Here are some punched hearts that I layered for a pretty, fluttery look..

 

 

Some layered punched flowers.

 

 

Another flower and 'Card Candi'.

 

 

The whole thing is wrapped around with a diamante chain.

 

 

Some of the flowers were made by punching out hearts and overlapping them in a circle to create petals.

 

 

The others were made with 3 different sized flower punches. My mother-in-law had a huge craft punch clear out so I got a little carried away!

 

 

To make the whole thing a little more durable it got a couple of coats of Mod Podge which is my new favourite thing!

 

And here it is in situ!

 

 

 

And to explain just why I'm decorating H's (my Mum was seriously confused, I don't think she's quite accepted that I've changed my name!)... here's a hint as to what my surname is! This is another recent project and I love it so much I think I've decided what all of our friends are getting for Christmas!

 

 

Luxury Cards on a Budget

I'm a bit of a hoarder. Well, a massive hoarder if I'm honest, I've got boxes and bags and drawers full of things I can't bear to throw away. My husband hates it!

 

Whilst having a little of a clear out a few months ago (well, moving junk from one box to another) I found a load of broken costume jewellery, bag charms and keyrings that I'd kept because they were too pretty to throw away but I never wore or used and I finally realised what I could do with it all, rip it apart and stick the bits on cards of course!

 

This card has a little 'Je t'aime' heart charm from a necklace, and a Thomas Sabo perfume sample ribbon- I never throw ribbons out!

 

 

This is a broken earring set on a fabric sample from Next! 

 

  

This was a necklace...

 

 

As was this...

 

 

A phone charm...



 

 

Another phone charm...

 

 

And finally a bag charm...

 

 

I love making cards that look luxurious but cost nothing since it's all stuff that was destined for the bin (and in some cases freebies from shops!). Now I have a new issue, I don't want to give the cards away as they're too pretty!