When I was shopping at Michael's recently, I found some flat wooden hearts that I thought would be perfect for an altered art project. I had my husband drill a small hole on either side of the hearts so I could make them into hanging hearts. I decided that Love would be my theme for this set of 2 hearts. I'm also using these for the City Crafter Challenge Blog's Heart Challenge.
I started by painting the back of each 3" heart, and the front edges, black with craft acrylics. Then I picked out two different scrapbook papers with black and white colors on them; one is a toile pattern and the other is just an ornamental pattern. I Mod Podge'd those papers to the front of each heart. Then I used copper ink on a text stamp and stamped over the middle part of the paper on the hearts. (If you click on the image, you'll get a larger view and the text will be more visible there. )
I used digital collage sheets, in inchies sizes, to find the vintage photos I wanted to use. I got these great images from Itkupilli. I backed each image with some scrap wallpaper, which I cut with paper edge shaper scissors and adhered them to the paper-covered hearts.
I stamped the words "hope" and "love" onto some grungy paper, which I also distressed a bit with some ink. I adhered those to the heart, and also added a letter "X" sticker to one heart (for kisses) and a letter "O" sticker to the other heart (for hugs). And I added a small semi-glittered butterfly sticker to each heart too. The final touch was to add some deep red ribbon to each heart for hanging.
I just love how these hearts turned out. I think I'm going to hang them in my bedroom somewhere! And I see the potential for lots of other altered hearts in the future. I'd like to find some bigger hearts too so I can do different sizes.