Valentine's isn't in the Air - Emerald Creek Dares

It's time for a new challenge on the Emerald Creek Dares blog, this challenge is based on Valentine's isn't in the air, focusing more on love for the single people.  When we were told about the new challenge, I was excited about it as I hate Valentine's Day. So with the new challenge in mind, I created a canvas featuring myself and how important it is to love yourself first. 

Supplies Used: Emerald Creek - Heart Brads, Burnt Copper Embossing Powder & Onyx Frost Embossing Powder. Ranger/Tim Holtz - Black Soot Distress Ink, Embossing Ink, Hickory Smoke Distress Paint & Worn Lipstick Distress Paint. Ranger/Dina Wakley - White Gesso, Spatula & Ruby Acrylic Paint. Ranger - Texture Paste - Transparent Matte. Tim Holtz - Lattice Stencil. Tim Holtz Ideaology - Small Talk. Core'dinations - Tim Holtz Kraft Core: #3, #23 & #24.  Sizzix/Tim Holtz - Tiny Tattered Floral.

To get my canvas ready for painting, I painted the entire surface with White Gesso. After the Gesso had dried, I laid the lattice stencil down on the top left and bottom right hand corner of the canvas and covered the lattice pattern with Matte Texture Paste. 

Once the stencil images were dried, I painted the entire canvas with Ruby paint. After the Ruby paint for dry, I added some Hickory Smoke and Worn Lipstick Distress paint to the entire canvas. Once the coverage was good with the paint, I wiped off some of the wet paint with a paper towel to create a custom background. After the entire custom background was dry, I used my finger to apply Hickory Smoke paint over top of both lattice stencil images. 

After the Hickory Smoke paint was dry on the lattice stencil images, I covered each lattice image with embossing ink. Once the embossing ink was on, I mixed Onyx Frost and Burnt Copper Leaves Embossing Powder from Emerald Creek and sprinkled over top of each lattice stencil images. When the lattice images were covered with embossing powder, I used my heat tool to emboss them. 

After the lattice corner were embossed, I splattered some Hickory Smoke Distress Paint over the canvas. Once the splatters were dry, I used the embossing ink around the edges of the canvas and sprinkled Burnt Copper Leaves around them. When I was happy with the coverage on the edges, I used my heat tool and embossed all the edges.

Now that I had the canvas background how I wanted it, it was time to add the rest of the elements and embellishments.  To start I added the picture of myself in the middle of the canvas. To embellish the corners of the photos, I added the Heart brads from Emerald Creek to the top left hand corner and the bottom right hand corner of my photo. Once the heart brads were in place, I cut out a variety of the Tiny Tattered Floral from Tim Holtz Kraft Core #3, 23 & 24. After all of the flowers were rolled, I added them to bottom right and top left hand corner of the frame, around the hearts. The last element that was added was the "you are enough, be your beautiful self and always love yourself first" saying to the right and left side of the photo. To finish the saying, I added a heart to the bottom of the "yourself first" and to the side of "be your".

Here is my project with all of the elements:

Make sure that you go and check out the rest of the Emerald Creek Dares Design Team as they have all created different pieces using the same stamp sets:

Julia

Karon

Cathy

Diana

Shilpa

Claudia

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my "Love Yourself First" Canvas. Don't forget to enter your project into our Emerald Creek Dares Challenge for your chance to win a $25.00 gift certificate for the Emerald Creek Store!

Until Next Time!

-Katelyn