When you have a craft blog, the pressure is on to give crafty gifts! I knew I wanted to give my friend something nice for her wedding – – I think anything personalized is a boutique-type gift, so I wanted something personalized. I came up with this State Heart Art – it was one of those projects that just kept evolving until it came out right (with only a couple of hours to spare before the wedding – phew!)
I knew I wanted to do the whole state heart plus thing – I just bought sketch pens for my Silhouette Cameo, so I wanted to use those. I thought I’d whip it out, frame it and be done. The sketch pens are where you take out your blade and replace it with a pen, so the machine draws instead of cuts. Well, when it was done it wasn’t what I pictured – I thought the lines would be thicker – but they were more “sketched” and thin – I should have probably guessed that…
So, alternate plan. I thought to make the line seem beefier, I could stitch around it. So I first used a needle to poke holes all the way around the outside of the lines. Then I just sewed in and out of the holes – kind of like a little kid’s lacing card:
Even with the hand-stitching, it didn’t seem big enough or fancy enough or something when I just stuck it in a frame. So another change in plans. I found a board in the garage and figured the gift would have more umph if it were mounted on a board:
I had Trevor trim the board so it wasn’t so rectangle, then I painted it white. Then I taped some stripes onto it – I thought stripes would add a little “fun” to the project. Then I painted over the stripes with mod podge to prevent seeping (love that trick) then I painted on a couple of coats of gray. Let dry and peel off the tape and you’ll get nice crisp lines:
I wanted some hardware on the project, so I thought I’d attach the paper to the board with screws. Trevor predrilled the holes for me in each corner of the paper:
Then to give the paper more depth, I put a washer behind the paper as well as on top – – here you can see that:
So when I attached the paper to the board into those holes, the paper stuck out from the board a little – you can kind of tell that here – I loved that detail:
To attach the frame to the board I just super glued it on. That was it. I guess you could screw it on from the back, but I was afraid that it would be misplaced and poke through the front or something.
Anyways, after all those different ideas, I finally liked the end result. It was more work than my original plan, but I think it was worth it!
Need a personalized gift?? Give State Art a try!
Just Jaime says
I love how you beefed it up! I love the stitching too! This gives me some ideas. Thanks for sharing!
Heather Kinnaird says
LOVE it! what a great friend you are
Melanie @ bear rabbit bear says
Lovely idea! It turned out great!
A Proverbs 31 Wife says
Love it when a simple idea just keeps evolving into this elaborate piece of art!
Kassi @ Truly Lovely says
AW fun! Way to take the state art to a new level! I likes! 🙂
Amber says
What a fun idea I might try it with Korea + Iowa….Whenever I find some spare time, ha!
Michelle@Somedaycrafts says
Thanks for sharing your project with us on facebook. We will be featuring your project tomorrow on our blog for Facebook Friends Friday. Be sure to stop back in and grab at Featured at Someday Crafts button for your blog!
Jessi W says
So cute and simple, I love it! I’d be thrilled if you’d link this up at my current link party: https://practicallyfunctional.net/2012/07/the-fun-in-functional-link-party-6/
hurley thurston says
Awesome. I am pinning this now! I have the 50 States cartridge for my Cricut. whoo hoo
~hurley
Al@PolkaDotsandPaisley says
I love this! It makes me want to make one for my fiance and I.
Jess from Coxs Corner says
I really like the way your state art turned out! I’m going to have to pin it and try something similar sometime!
Lolly Jane says
Super cute, Mandy! We just cut ours out of cardstock, lol! XOXO
https://lollyjane.com/state-pride/
An Inviting Home says
This is so cute and the perfect wedding gift!
~Sarah