Craft Tutorial: Decorative Mosaic Heart Wall Hanging

Yay, a new DIY craft project! I was super happy with how this idea came out and hope you love it too!

Materials you'll need:

-Air dry clay

-A variety of beads including seed beads, and other decorative items to mosaic; you could use buttons, tiles, gemstones... see what your stash holds or your local craft store

-Acrylic Paint 

-Decorative Papers with small designs

-Gloss sealer/ medium (only if you're not using Mod Podge)

-Tacky Craft Glue; I use a non toxic glue called "super-tac glue". It's similar to PVA but dries a bit faster holding bigger objects like for this tutorial

-Embroidery thread in your chosen colours

-Tassel

-Mod Podge (Optional)

Other useful items: cutting mat, fine/ embroidery scissors, needle & thread, clay tools, scalpel or similar

Note: You make your "love" tile from a printed image so it looks a little different than the tile in the above photo. But still awesome!

Instructions:

Download the template here and print out at a high quality at 100% size. Cut the heart template out. Take some air dry clay and roll out to approx 5mm thickness (3/16") on your cutting mat. Place your heart template onto the clay and cut around. Smooth edges with a clay tool or your fingers. Poke a hole for hanging in the top and bottom of the heart shape with a pointy clay tool. 

Next, we are going to make some of the mosaic "tiles" with your decorative papers.

Roll out some more clay to around 4mm (3/16") thickness. Cut out little squares/ rectangles/ triangles/ odd shapes the sizes you would like your tiles. Make around half a dozen for one heart. Make a longer piece 4.5cm x 1.5cm (1 13/16 x 9/16") that you will glue the "love" type image onto. Smooth the edges and make sure they are flat. Leave the heart shape and the tiles for around 24 hours or until dry.

Now make up the tiles:

Cut out little pieces of paper slightly larger than the shapes and paste the back with Mod Podge or PVA- type glue. Press onto the shapes firmly and leave for a minute or so. Trim around the edges with some fine scissors. Paint the fronts of your "tiles" with the mod podge or gloss sealer, and paint the edges with coloured acrylic paint. Make the 'love' tile in the same way.

Take some acrylic paints and paint the heart all over, front and back. I used some bright green with touches of yellow and turquoise on this one.

I also made some polymer mosaic shapes for my heart, but you can use the paper tiles and other decorative pieces for your heart. Note: I am creating a tutorial on how to make the polymer clay tiles that will be available in the near future.

Testing out some pieces on a heart (this one features a polymer clay love tile); looking good!

We are going to put a rim of tacky glue around one side of the heart, string some beads onto some thread and start gluing them down. I chose beads that would fit onto a normal sewing needle. Keep stringing beads and gluing them down until you frame the whole outside of the heart.

Now, cover the whole inside of the heart with your tacky glue, and place your mosaic components on to your liking, leaving gaps between the decorative elements.

Once you have all the larger pieces in place, sprinkle seed beads into all the left over gaps. Careful when you are gluing and placing your pieces not to cover the two holes in the heart. Once the glue has dried sufficiently you can shake off the excess seed beads.

Thread some embroidery thread onto a needle and sew a tassel and some beads onto the bottom of the heart. I looped through the heart a few times as I liked the look of thicker cotton at the bottom. 

I looped and tied some silver thread for the top hanger, then sewed that on after I had sewed into the top of the heart and threaded some beads on.

You are done! Hang & enjoy!

I made a range of the hanging hearts that are now available in my Etsy shop. So if you'd love one made by me, head on over there to check them all out.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial, and please let me know if you try it out, I'd love to see your creation!

Jules :)