mama boss: the giveaway project.

I just held a giveaway, to celebrate my 100th post. Now that it is all said and done, and I've announced the winner, I thought I would tell about my inspiration for the prize.
Truth be told, when I decided to do a giveaway I didn't know what I would offer to the winner. I thought about it as a was laying in bed Saturday night, trying to figure out what I could make. And then it came to me.
A couple of days ago I had seen a fun looking project done by Merrilee at mer mag. She called it "cookie cutter art" and it was a terribly wonderful idea.

Then I remembered I had and 8x10 canvas that I'd painted pink several weeks ago, as a way to not waste some paint. I had already screwed four holes into it, because I was intending to produce another one of my key-hang projects for my etsy. That pink canvas would become the prize.
I wanted to try the cookie cutter art, but instead of x and o cutters I wanted to use hearts. My only problem was that I don't have any heart cookie cutters. But I'm pretty awesome, and came up with a sweet solution. I made my own. I cut a couple of sheets of aluminum and folded them into strips. Then I shaped them, the first into a larger heart and the second I made look like a tiny heart with a bigger one around it.
I poured out some dark red and some white paint and started marking the canvas.

Once I had all the hearts where I wanted them I left it to dry overnight.
But I wanted more than the paint hearts. I wanted some fabric ones. I really like the idea of sewing scraps and buttons onto paintings, so it was only natural that I would want to do so on this. The next morning was Monday, the day I said I'd announce my winner, but I didn't want to do that until the prize was completed.
During the kids naps I took the canvas out to spray it with a protective coating. While that dried I collected my sewing gear and the pieces of fabric that I'd cut into heart shapes the night before. Then I had to figure out where I wanted the hearts to lay on the canvas. Once I had a general idea of where they would go I started sewing.

It was surprisingly quick work, and I had the pieces most of the way sewn by the time the kids were waking up. I probably only worked on it for half an hour. As I looked at my work it seemed to me that it was still missing something. A button had not been in my original plan for this project, but it seemed like just the thing to finish it.
I found the perfect button, a small, pink, heart-shaped one. Then I embroidered some heart shapes around it with a darker pink embroidery thread.