Key to my heart

Good Morning everyone

Gosh the weeks are flying by and now its June - scary and time for a new challenge over at Creative Artiste Mixed Media where the theme is always anything goes as long as you mix those medias!

This year Im trying to use old stash and I found these greyboard hearts in the back of my craftdrobe while looking for something else - I also dug out my box of very old tim holtz grunge board shapes and came up with this wall hanging. 

Sizes approx - biggest heart is 5.5x5"  Med 3x2.5"  Small 1.75x1"

See below for full details.  Once finished I punched holes in the hearts and connected together using metal jump rings.  

Large Heart - after doing backgound (details below) - I took some grungeboard & metal keys - the grungeboard ones I first covered with black gesso, stippling it on so some areas are thicker than others thus giving a more rusty old appearance and then added the same paints used in the background so orange, greens and blues. To the metal keys I added some of the same colours of paint to tie them together, then arranged them all the on background. I found some old plastic alpha's which I black gesso'd and added touches of paint and adhered to say 'key'

Medium heart - I added a grungeboard lock which id black gesso'd and painted the same as the keys.  I added screw top brads through the holes and added to the heart.  I took 2 kraft chit chat sticker saying 'to' & 'my', added to black card and covered with glossy accents for an enamel look.

Small heart - I found a really small grungeboard heart, covered with the orange paint used on the other elements and covered with glossy accents.  Chit chat sticker reads 'heart'

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See below for how I did backgrounds

I first adhered flowers I had die cut from grunge paper eons ago and covered it all in black gesso.  I added crackle paste in areas and then added blue, green, orange & yellow acrylic paints. once dry I knocked back the vibrancy by dry brushing on antique white chalk paint. 

 I then added torn pieces of script printed tissue paper in areas and added orange paint through a script stencil.  I then dry brushed on gold & orange dora cadence paints which is beautifully shimmery when the light hits it. 

I finished by sealing it all with mod podge

I edged all the hearts with black gesso to help frame them and draw the eye inwards, for neatness I also covered the back of the hearts with black gesso.  

You can see the crackle paste better here....this is an old jar i found lurking in the back of the craftdrobe and it was nearly set solid ....I added a little warm water to the jar, let that sit a while and then gave it a good mixing with a stick which seemed to resurrect it and Im pleasantly surprised that it still works so that was worth doing...now i must use it more often!

Items Used:

Tim Holtz grungeboard & paper, chit chat stickers, metal keys, alpha stickers

Tim Holtz tattered flowers bigz die

Metal keys

Papermania Screw top brads

Acrylic paints - pebeo, plaid folk art

Cadence Dora paint - gold & orange

Daler rowney black gesso

Ranger glossy accents

Mod podge - matt

Papermania script tissue paper

Crackle Paste

Please do hop over to Creative Artiste Mixed Media to see what the rest of the DT have created and to join in - remember anything goes as long as you use at least 3 different medias. 

I hope you all have a good weekend. Emma

Id love to enter the following:

https://neglectedstuff.blogspot.com/2025/06/neglected-stuff-625-challenge.html - greyboard hearts and grungeboard elements 12+ yrs old, crackle paste? (don't even remember buying that so years ago) found lurking at back of cupboard and nearly dried up, plastic alpha's 6yrs old...

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https://theoutlawzchallenges-saturday.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-outlawz-anything-goes-in-card-free.html

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https://www.simplyellibelle.com/2025/06/ellibelles-crafty-wednesday-june-and.html

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https://cardsgalorechallenges.blogspot.com/2025/06/june-2025-crafts-galore-encore.html

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https://craftrocketchallenges.blogspot.com/2025/06/challenge-126-no-designpaper.html