Mer-made for Each Other

Happy Valentine's Day 💝.  

I thought it would be fun to do 14 days of love by making 14 hearts, starting today with this punny heart.

PREPARATION

• Download items from the supplies list below.
• Import the mercouple clip art (the artwork comes both coloured and black and white) into graphics program and resize to fit a 150mm x 150mm heart (my couple were 125mm tall).  Then printed that out.
• The download includes jpg, png and svg formats.  Import the svg into Canvas Workspace and isolate the outer line only and export that to cut out the clip art. 

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• Scan the print layout of the mercouple into the ScanNCut (I really love that feature!), then line up the outline and cut out the couple.
• Using the pre-installed shapes on the ScanNCut cut four (4) 150mm hearts from 0.6mm greyboard, and one (1) heart from patterned paper printed from the Serene Digital Waters collection.
• I created the text (Mer-made for each other) in Canvas Workspace and used the "Fit to Path" function to get the text to curve around the top of the heart.
• Cut the text from patterned card printed from the Serene Waters Digital Textures pack.
• Cut out the Seaweed Stencil, resized to 200mm x 200mm from thick (Kraft) card.

ASSEMBLY

• Glue the 4 greyboard hearts together.  This will give a nice, rigid base.
• Glue the patterned paper heart to the top of the greyboard stack.  (Leave to dry under something heavy so it doesn't warp.)
• Mix three green shades of Aladine Izink Diamond Paint (turquoise, dark green and light green) and then pass that through the stencil at the bottom of the heart. (I chose to mix the colours but that is optional.)
• Use silver Diamond Paint through the stencil to create bubbles.
• Leave to dry, then glue the mercouple to the centre of the heart.
•  Glue the text around the curve top of the heart.
• Add some clear acrylic gems randomly across the heart.
• Add a small heart between the couple. (I used Diamond Paint in pink.  If making this again I would make the heart bigger). 
• Go over the mercouple's tails with a clear glitter pen so that they are glistening. (I didn't do that until after I'd taken the photo, but I like how it looks.)

Check out the process video:

Supplies:

Mermaid and Merman Clip Art

Serene Waters Digital Textures

Seaweed Stencil Cut File

Alafyou Swirly Font (download free as part of the Huge Font Bundle until 25/02/2022)

Aladine Izink Diamond Paint (UK)

Aladine Izink Diamond Paint (USA)

Clear Sparkle (Glitter) Pen

Acrylic gems

L'amour est la cle

When it comes to craft supplies I'm a hoarder.  I can't bear to part with the smallest scraps of paper or a bit of ribbon that came with a gift or some old cardboard that could be used for some project or other.  So in an attempt to destash I decided to make a heart wall hanging out of old cereal boxes that I've been putting aside for a while.  

I made a large heart template on a piece of A5 card and then traced around that on the large panels of the cereal box.   After cutting them out (4 of them) and punching holes so that the finished piece could be hung, I stuck the 4 hearts together to get a thick, chipboard type of effect.  I also used the heart template to cut a heart from a piece of woodgrain effect paper.  NOTE - I suggest placing the heart stack underneath something heavy to prevent it from warping as the glue dries.

I cut the flowers with my ScanNCut using a pattern that I designed myself and coloured them using Spectrum Noir alcohol markers, before layering them together.  The leaves came from another die set.  I also used some Katy Sue Flower Soft for the flower centres. 

I gave the padlock die cut the same treatment as the hanging heart in that I layered up several die cuts - 5 from plain white card and one from gold mirror card - to get some dimension.  I then went over the front and sides with copper gilding wax to take away the white edges. 

The lettering was die cut using Sizzix Brush Alphabet dies and then I added a few freehand hearts to finish it all off.  I decided to go with French as it was a present for my (French) friend's mother.  To finish it off I used some thick string, which gave it a bit of a rustic feel.

In case you're interested in any of the supplies that I used:

• Sizzix Brush Alphabet dies: upper case / lower case
• Tattered Lace Lock & Key dies
• Layered Flower SVG file - download for free
• Wood background papers*
• Coloured wood grain digital papers*

*affiliate link

Redbubble Round-up

This post contains affiliate links. If you click on any of the links and subsequently buy something, I will receive a commission.

I joined Redbubble about two years ago because I really wanted to create art and share it.  As my house is slowly being overrun with craft and art supplies, creating art digitally was a great way to express my creativity without needing lots of space and bulky supplies to do it.

I tend to be quite reticent when it comes to my art (which isn't a great strategy), so I've decided to produce a weekly Redbubble Round-Up where I'll be sharing what's new in the world of Merry Makewell Designs as well as highlighting other works that have caught my eye.

As I just uploaded a new sticker design to my shop, this week I'm looking at STICKERS.  Stickers come in up to four sizes ranging from around 100mm (about A7 size) up to around 30mm (about A4 size) depending on the design.  Buy any 4 and get 25% off or any 10 for 50% off.

First up is my new design "Choose Love Floral Heart".  This would be great on the cover of  a journal.

Choose Love Floral Heart

I love this "Autumnal Floral Book Stack" by Emma Mildred Riggle.  It would work for a scrapbook page or in a bullet journal or planner.

Autumnal Floral Book Stack

Another good scrapbook or planner option is this cute combination of vintage camera and old maps - "Travel".

Travel

You get four stickers in one with this cute set of flower doodles.  I  like that they're black and white so could be coloured if you wanted.

Flowers

And finally, "Lotus Birds".  It features two of my favourite things - flowers and birds - and the colours are perfect.

Lotus Birds

Choose Love - Free Printable

Happy Valentine's Day!  In honour of all things love and romance I created this poster as a reminder to always choose love.  Download the A4 poster here.

If you'd like to create your own projects you can get free downloads of the floral digital elements from here and this and 99 other wood backgrounds from here.

White On White

I'm taking part in the Simply Less Is More challenge, with the theme of 'white on white' this week.

I created my card using a Sheena Douglass embossing folder for the background.  I LOVE that swirly pattern. The die cut is the Love Scroll from the new Tattered Lace Melded collection (more on that soon) which I've highlighted with Dovecraft's Crystal glitter glue.  It has pink and green highlights which was really hard to capture on film, so to speak, but does a great job of lifting the die cut from the background.  I also placed a length of ivory ribbon behind the die cut and a trio of pearls in two corners for added interest.