United in love.

Tonight I have a project for you that is really special to me.

I have shared in earlier posts that I am remarried. I have 4 girls by a previous marriage and my husband is very much in love and dedicated to all of us. We didn't have a wedding, just a ceremony with our lawyer in his office and my parents and their kids with them. It was not much ado, but still very special. I know what true love is and uniting with that person whether a big or small (or minute in my case) is something to be celebrated! The "marriage certificate" from SC was a copied piece of paper (crooked I might add) with our names on it, but nothing you'd hang up. I felt we should have something in our home that stated 

"this was the day".

It was not just myself being united in love. My husband gave each girl a ring from him telling them he was committing to being there for them for life. That was my favorite part of our ceremony. My girls have a wonderful man to lead them in life and we are all now United in love! So the item I made above isn't our names but a statement that we were united in love and the date. That was every time we walk past it we will all remember that special day!

So on to the tutorial.

 Supplies needed:

An x-acto knife or really sharp small scissors.

8x8 shadowbox frame (scored mine at Michaels for $4)

acrylic paint in blue pearl and turquoise black-you'll understand the picture with these paints later in the post.

and trusty Rubber Cement or white glue if you like. I prefer the clean up on paper with rubber cement, no residue or smears and it doesn't make your paper crumple.

You will also need paper to back the cutting and paper in your choice of color for the cutting. I used white and then painted. I could have used black to start. You'll understand soon enough...read on.

First trace the piece you want to cut onto a piece of paper. You can find all sorts of images on Google image searches. I had this image saved in a picture file. I have no idea where it came from. I did find a beautiful image that will work as well.

This came from a free clip art page and I saved it to my picture file. If anyone is interested in making one of these and you'd like an email with a full sized pattern sent to you to print out, please just let me know in the comments section.

Now. I cut mine out of white paper with the intent to make this Aqua on white and really make it fun and pop. Once I had it painted:

I didn't care for it. I mean it would be cute in a small frame or decoupaged onto a plaque that was painted another bright color, but this was an elegant project and I felt it was getting a little too "fun and trendy". I wanted this to be an item I kept up in our home for years  ever! 

So I went with black on white...I know boring me! So I switched paint colors and was much happier with the results. See! I mess up all the time as well!

Try again!

Much better!

Next step is to pick a saying. Mine was United in love and the date we were married.

You could put a bible verse, verse of poetry or just welcome!

I set the type in my Pages program (I have a MAC). I chose a font that has a bit of script feel.

Fiddle with your point size for the font and find what fits in your frame size. What you chose to say will change what size the font is.

Once I had the saying printed out on my white card stock, I rubber cemented it onto the paper.

I then trimmed it down to a 8x8 sized piece and mounted it in the frame.

A note on Rubber Cement. I used this in design class years back and find that for delicate things of paper, this works great. It doesn't wrinkle the paper like glue. You brush it on and after you put it on your piece you can go back and clean it up nice. If you haven't worked with rubber cement, let me give you some tips:

brush some rubber cement onto a solid work surface. You want to brush a 4 or 5 inch square at least. I did mine on my dining table a.k.a. craft table. After it has dried you rub gently with your finger and it will start to create a ball. We called this a "nerd"- I have no idea if any other design classes did? This "nerd" will now stick to other rubber cement. So...when you have placed your cutting down and there is any messy squishies (technical term)  around the cutting? This  little nerd can be rubbed over that and will stick to it and remove it like an eraser. Pretty cool huh? I use this when mounting on black paper often as the glue will be seen if there is any showing when it dries.

Here's the finished piece! It looks great on the living room wall! We all love it!

I hope you try your hand at this and let me know how it goes or if you have any questions.

Until next time Dear Reader,

Chatty Cathy

I am sharing this project on:

Winter Blues Wednesday

Wow us Wednesdays

At The Picket Fence