Ya Got a Heart

My brother has a hilarious story about a Labor Day festival game where one of his friends won a little stuffed heart.  The expression the game worker had when my brother's friend won was flat and disinterested, "Ya got a heart."  My brother makes me laugh...a lot...and I always crack up when I think of that story because he still says that expression sometimes and hearing it is just so funny!

Either way, this post is neither about Labor Day festivals or bored festival workers, but it is about hearts! 

A few weeks ago, I convinced Brian that it would be so much fun to make something framed for our darling girl.  What better than a heart of buttons with colors similar to those we've planned to have in her room?!  Brian loved really liked was convinced about the idea, and so we started a little art project!

We bought some buttons, nail polish colors, and a frame.  We painted all of the buttons, let them dry overnight, and assembled a beautiful heart the very next day.  Afterwards, we piled a bunch of cook books on top of it so that it would dry flat and we could affix it to another piece of paper to go into the frame.

Everything appeared to be working out smoothly, but it didn't really work out as planned...

...The paper wrinkled from the Elmer's glue.  When I tried to cut the heart out, it was nearly impossible to get a nice, solid cut with buttons hanging over the edge.  (This perfectionist could simply not live with that.)  We were at our wits end as to what we were going to do, especially after we had just spent a lot of time hand painting buttons... (I was also wondering how I would ever convince Brian to do arts and crafts with me again if this little project didn't work out.)

We let the art project sit to the side for awhile while we gathered our thoughts.  We ultimately decided to remove the glued buttons from the original paper, rearrange and glue them directly onto foam board, and put that in our frame.

And that was just the ticket!

Our framed button heart turned out fantastically!!!  And it is the perfect addition to our reading corner!  Almost every corner of our little girl's room has our personal touch added to it, and that makes it even more special!

So, sweet girl, ya got a heart...!  A very, very special heart:


Click the photo to see our progress from start to finish!