For some reason, from like day one of scrapbooking, one of my favorite designs has been arranging some punched hearts into a row and adding a stitched line in the middle. I seriously have no idea what started this obsession, but it has been something I use in my sketches and layouts often.
Naturally, if it's something I use often that means I typically will explore multiple ways to use this design so that I'm not repeating the same exact design each time. I like to stretch and exercise my creativity by finding as many new ways to use a design concept as a I can.
So, when I turned to this design idea once again, I decided to give it a different spin by creating an ombre effect with the hearts. I used two different types of hearts to achieve this effect - watercolor hearts and patterned paper hearts.
I used some pink watercolor and painted a large section with a fade, starting with dark pink at the top and ending with a really light pink at the bottom. After the watercolor had dried I cut the watercolor paper into horizontal strips and punched out my hearts. Then I selected a few patterned papers that coordinated with the different shades of pink and arranged them all together to create the ombre effect.
With my stitching, I wanted it to be included in the color fade so I used four different shades of embroidery floss with each line of stitching.
Other ways you could adapt this technique would be to:
• Use two colors that fade into each other. For example red that fades into blue or yellow that fades into green.
• Create a rainbow that fades into each colors. Red to orange to yellow to green to blue, etc.
• Use different shapes like stars, hexagons, squares, butterflies, or arrows.
Want to see more? Find me on...