Sophie’s Heart Art Party :: Personalized Painted Frames

Clearly, at this “Heart Art Party,” we had to do some art. And it should include hearts. This was project number one – painted frames, personalized with each girl’s name.

It came from a marriage of Sophie’s idea to paint picture frames and my idea to paint over contact paper letters, like Amanda did with her children at ImpressYourKids. (Part of her post includes a video tutorial on how to cut out letters.) I love the pinks and greens on the one her daughter did!

At our party, each girl got a frame, her name cut from contact paper, however many other contact paper “stickers” she wanted to use, and of course, a paintbrush and paper plate full of her choice of paint colors.

It was so fun to see all the different designs the girls came up with. The end results were as varied and unique as the girls themselves. Here are the ones I managed to snap photos of, before they were taken home:

Some tips and ideas:

• After the contact paper stickers are in place, paint over the edges with white paint and let that dry before you start in with colors. Below are my test pieces without and with white pre-painting.

 

• There will likely still be some color that bleeds under the stickers. A white fine-tip paint pen – or fine bristle brush – and steady hand can fix that, if it bothers you.

 

• I added the hanging “hardware” (if you can call a bent paperclip “hardware”) after painting, so the canvas wouldn’t be wobbly while being painted. I also hot-glued on some cardboard scraps, so the frame would be lifted away from the wall just a bit.

 

• If it hadn’t been February and I could’ve spread my project preparations outside, I would have made frames out of cardboard – which I have lots of and is free – and then painted them white. Instead, I bought canvas-covered chipboard at the local discount store, then cut holes in them.

 
 

…And I think there were something else I was going to mention, but our houseguest, intern Ruthy, and her friends have sucked me into watching the Oscars (my first time EVAH) and looking for a win on the fun bingo sheets Jessica from HowAboutOrange made.  : )