That Craft Place Challenge Blog: Heart Wreath Tutorial

Hello everyone.

It's NICOLA here today to show you a tutorial. I am going to show you how I decorated this beautiful MDF heart wreath.

First of all, here is the product list of everything I have used on my project...of course available from my favourite THAT CRAFT PLACE

MDF Heart Wreath ~ Gesso ~ Cosmic Shimmer Crackle Paint's in shades Saffron, Vanilla, Corinth Blue ~ Tim Holtz Distress Inks in shades Tea Dye, Antique Linen, Shaded Lilac ~ Creative Expressions Metallic Gilding Wax in shades Graceful Mustard, Cast Bronze, Pewter ~ Cosmic Shimmer Acrylic Glue ~ Collall 3D Glue ~ Petal Lu Flowers

The butterfly embellishment and the vintage brooch are what I already had in my crafty stash!

Step by Steps...

1. Paint the wreath and hearts with gesso.

2. Paint the wreath circle and large hearts with Vanilla Crackle Paint. Paint the heart frames with Corinth Blue Crackle Paint. Paint the smaller hearts with Saffron Crackle Paint. Leave to dry overnight.

When it's thoroughly dried you will be able to see the cracks that have appeared.

3. Use the Antique Linen Distress ink and a blending tool to dab over the Vanilla hearts. Use the Tea Dye ink and dab over the saffron hearts. Use the Shaded Lilac ink and dab over the Corinth Blue heart frames. You will see how this really shows up the cracks more.

4. Use your finger to rub Graceful Mustard Gilding Wax on the edges of the circle and the Vanilla hearts. Rub lightly over the circle and the hearts with the wax too. Rub over the wax using kitchen paper to remove any excess wax, and to buff the wax up. Use the same techniques with the Cast Bronze on the Saffron hearts and the Pewter on the Corinth Blue heart frames.

*If you find your guilding waxes have dried out and gone quite hard, add a tiny amount of turpentine into the pot, leave for about 10 minutes. This should then have softened the gilding wax ready to use.

* A little tip for getting into small corners and crevices with your gilding wax ~ use a cotton bud. I stick the bud into the wax pot to pick up a smalll blob of the wax. I then force the blob into the corner and push it into it using the bud. If it is a smaller corner than a bud will fit into, I then use a cocktail stick.

5. Now to glue the hearts onto the wreath. Depending on how you wish to hang your wreath, if you want to use a ribbon or twine, now is the time to thread it through the hole at the top. This is because we will be glueing a heart over the hole. I want to hang my wreath with the hole straight onto a hook on my wall, so I'm not going to use any ribbon.

Before you start to glue, lay all your hearts on the wreath until you are happy with the position.

Once you are happy with the position, start to glue them in place with the acrylic glue. Leave to dry.

6. To finish, glue into the heart frames the flowers using the 3D glue. Glue the ornate butterfly to the top middle heart and the vintage brooch to the bottom middle heart. These two embellishements I already had in my stash, you could use whatever you already have.