A Valentine's Day Craft I Created. No Copycatting Involved!-A Tutorial

I am proud.  This is by no means a perfect project and there are a few things I'd do differently, (no worries, I'll let you know what they are) but I made this without cheating off someone else's creativity.  There's hope!

I started with a white canvas, a paintbrush, white, pink, and red acrylic paint.

I squirted the white paint on the acrylic canvas...

and got some help spreading it out evenly.

I lightly dry brushed the canvas with the light pink and red paints. (If I had to do it again, I wouldn't have used pink. I decided to do the accent pieces in red so the red dry brushing alone would have probably looked better.

Here's the prepared canvas. I really like the dimension/texture or whatever you call the hint of color.

I printed words on my computer. I knew I wanted "Love is" but struggled for the last word.  I liked magical.  But, then I asked my four year old, GraciAnn.  With her big blue eyes opened wide, she said, "Love is AMAZING!"  Amazing was perfect for our sign! "Love" is in AR DECODE font at 300 pt. "Is Amazing" is Monster Papparazzi font in 100 pt. I cut the words out and positioned them on the canvas.  At the end, I didn't like the placement because it made it difficult to decorate the rest of the sign. Next time, I'll think through the entire project before making it permanent.

I took a pencil and scribbled on the back of the words to make it easily to transfer them onto the canvas.

I then traced the outline of the letters, with a sharp pencil.

If you look closely, you can see the letters on the canvas, ready to fill in.

I took a black, glossy, acrylic paint and carefully filled in the words.

Here's what it looks like all painted.

Now, for the embellishments. I  made 4 flowers out of red felt (the same felt I used on the amazing wreath) and black burlap. I also needed a needle and thread. I used 9 3" circles for each flower. Five black circles and four red circles per flower.  Between this project and the wreath project I am so over cutting circles!

For each flower, I took a black burlap circle as a base.  I folded the remaining circles in quarters and sewed them on one at a time at the pointed part of the circle.

I sewed the second one directly across from the first.

I filled in the third...

and fourth ones to complete the base.

Then, I added the red felt circles.  I folded them in quarters too.  I overlapped two of the black pieces.

I sewed the second one right across from the first.

Fill in with the third....

and fourth circles. This is what it looks like prior to being "fluffed".

Then I kind of unfolded and fluffed the circles and this was my flower.

Here's my finished piece.  I took black grosgrain ribbon and hot glued it around the edges to give it a finished look.  I also added a bow, from the same ribbon.  I was trying to balance everything out.  It wasn't easy.  I definitely should have planned ahead.  That's the benefits of copy crafting.  You learn from others' mistakes.  Oh well!  I really like how it turned out and it was another inexpensive addition to my Valentine's Day crafts!