Heart Art, Part 3 - Paper Strips

This 3rd Heart Art piece was the hardest to figure out what to do with. The button one was my first idea, the stacked was a very close second (though why I completed them out of order I have no idea...)

But this, the 3rd, I had a handful of ideas none of which I was sure would work. But then, while browsing through some other blogs, I found this and knew it was exactly what I wanted to do for the 3rd frame. The ladies at Roots & Wings do a much better job of explaining how to make these and I honestly LOVE the papers they used.

But those vibrant papers wouldn't fit in with what I wanted my collection to look like so I went with boring red and white paper. I plan on making more of these with more exciting paper soon.

Here is what you'll need to make my boring version:

Materials:

• Pictured are 8 sets of paper cut to lengths that decent by half an inch each. But I ended up only using the smaller of the 6 sets because the larger 2 wouldn't fit. Each set is 2 piece of paper, cut to the same size. All of the strips have a whole cut at the top and bottom of the strip.
• 5"x5" frame
• Square of burlap
• Square of black paper
• Brads, grommets or another fun way to fasten the strips of paper together. I imagine you could skip the holes in the paper and just staple them in theory.
• Not picture, I also ended up needing 2.5" strip of paper but I'll get to that later.

Step 1, Attach the burlap to the black paper:

Step 2, Starting with one of the largest strips of paper and then going to the smallest, line up the bottom of strips and then when you get the smallest, go back up towards the biggest. Like I said, you might want to visit Roots and Wings for the instructions. I don't feel like I'm doing a good job.

Step 3, this is the slightly tricky part... You then need fold the top of the strips of paper in towards the center and secure with a brad like this:

 

You'll notice in the picture above, that I've got a strip running down the center... that is the 2.5" strip I mentioned earlier... without it, my heart was too big to fit into the 5"x5" frame. It was beautiful without it, but it didn't fit and needed something to draw down the top and puff out the sides a bit more. 

Step 4, attach to the burlap with white glue and pop into the frame...

Then if you're like me, you realize that you don't like it... I thought it was missing something.

So I curled up a few more pieces of paper and ended up with this, which I am very happy with.

 

Now I have to figure out how to display them together... I'd love to have them above my new book case, but it isn't finished yet. Maybe by the weekend it will be.