Easy Peasy Pretty Pair

     Yay! I am finally doing a for real craft post! Inspired by this and this on A Beautiful Mess, I was so excited about this one. I dragged Taylor to the store the other day with visions of the loveliness that would soon reside over our bed, and I'm so happy with the finished product. It took me the entire afternoon, but I was also doing laundry and waiting on my birthday flowers to arrive, so I was taking longer than I could have. I totally think you should make one for yourself -if you're against the lovey-dovey stuff, then how about just you or an adorable pet?

Supplies: Five (or more/less) colors of scrapbook paper, one piece of white poster board, photo of choice (printed out of course), embroidery thread, ribbon, paper doilies, decent-sized frame, gold paint pen, needle, glue stick, scissors, and a measuring tape.

One: Print out your favorite photograph and take your scissors to it. Make sure it's an image that can be easily cut out, nothing with crazy backgrounds and confusing lines -it just makes the whole process easier. Cut allll the way around it (and in the middle if there are parts like mine between the arms, where the background of the photo shows through).

Two: Cut out your piece of poster board so it will fit into the frame.
Three: Snip out equilateral triangles from your scrapbook paper. Mine were 2.5in. on each side but you could do bigger or smaller depending on the frame size. I ended up with about seven of the colorful pieces and fourteen of the neutral and it was just enough. You could also add more colors, less colors, use paint swatches instead, the possibilities are kind of endless.
Four: Place those triangles in a pretty pattern on your poster board. Make sure you like the layout before you glue anything down and try to keep the triangles as close together and straight as possible. Glue, and then trim around the edges.

Five: Figure out where you want your doily and photo placed, and then glue those down as well. I liked mine with one doily as a sort of halo effect, but you could certainly add more. It could be cute to do two different images and then halo them both; get creative!

Six: Once everything is glued into place, thread your needle with a length about twice as long as the area you want to cover. So for mine, I doubled the length around the doily section that was showing and then used that much thread, and it worked perfectly. Another tip is to poke your holes where you want them, first, giving you a guideline to follow. Then go about your sewing. I just did a simple backstitch on mine but you could always get fancier.
Warning here: Be careful! The paper and the doily are way more fragile than fabric, so go slow and don't pull too tightly. I managed to feel really dumb and ripped part of my doily, oops! Luckily you can't really see it once it's framed, but you have been warned.

Seven: Embellishing time! Glue a pretty ribbon across the top and add some lyrics with a gold pen (mine are from "Birds of a Feather" by The Civil Wars!) Another mistake I made for you that you can avoid -don't write too close to the edges, as the frame will end up covering some of your words up.

Eight: Frame it and hang it on the wall! Bonus points if you cut out extra hearts to place around it. Triple bonus points if you make your bed for the sole purpose of photographing it! And if your puppy hides under the bed all day because you're busy crafting, then you win automatically.

      I really hope you enjoyed this because I've got a few more crafty things up my sleeve. Go forth and create, my beautiful readers! XO.