Made By Me Monday: Quotation Wall Hanging

I was invited to a friend's birthday party recently. Yay! I love parties. Good times with good friends. What's not to love?

Although, after the initial, "Yay party," excitement, I was hit with the realization that I would need a gift for her. Hmmm...what to do? I asked a mutual friends for suggestions and what to my wondering eyes did appear? She responded with a note about how the birthday girl liked handmade things. If you're picturing me leaping up and down and giggling with delight, you're pretty much on target.

I'm a quotation fiend. I LOVE quotations. So, I made use of what was available. I headed to the birthday girl's Facebook page and checked out her list of favorite quotations. Among them, one jumped out at me,

"World Peace can become a reality when every person finds peace in their own heart."

I instantly headed over to the Graphics Fairy in search of images that could work with that. A search for "Heart," didn't help much nor did "World," or "Globe." Hmmm...what other images would work? A search for, "Map," brought up a number of usable options. The map of London worked perfectly. I found man and woman icons and filled them in with the map and then arranged them like paper dolls--hand-in-hand. The back of the guidebook worked well for a background. I can't seem to find it on the site, now, but the flower squares on the lower right corner are also a Graphics Fairy find. I used digital scrapbook finds to fill in the rest.

I ordered a an 8x10 print and then found a frame (although, I also considered mounting it to a wooden plaque or a canvas). I used buttons, gems, beads and paint pens to add some extra dimension. They were added right on the print. I had tiny heart-shaped gems which I glued on to one each of the paper dolls. I thought it would be cute and in keeping with the quotation.

You know that old adage about measuring twice and cutting once? It could also be applied to buying frames (just replace cut with "Buy"). When I tried to display the print in the pretty frame I bought for it, I realized it didn't quite fit. The smallest of the dimensional mattes cut off a portion of the picture and the next one up was too big. Of course, I realized this just hours before the party. So I scoured my stash and found pretty black lace ribbon. I had enough for the side and bottom, so I glued the picture on top of the smallest matte slightly off-center and glued one ribbon alongside and another under it.

Here, you can see the little heart gems on two of the people.