creating with jules: mosaic hearts

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 colors

Tassel

Mod Podge (Optional)

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

Start by cutting out a heart template.

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. 

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 create 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.

Using glue, add a rim around one side of the heart.

String some beads onto 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.

Test out the placement of your tiles.

Next, fill the inside of the heart with tacky glue, and place your mosaic pieces onto the glue, 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 hope you enjoyed the tutorial, and please let me know if you try it out, I'd love to see your creation!  Jules :)

To see more of my work or to get in touch, visit me at http://julesmadden.blogspot.com.au