Beautiful sequin heart

Remember the spooky tree Halloween panel? The one that started life as a pretty autumnal tree in my imagination? Well, this is where I ended up using the sequins that inspired that original idea.

I came up with and discarded several ideas before finally deciding to try something I hadn’t done before: actually sewing sequins. I used fun foam as the base to give it some structure while keeping it flexible enough to give me options when it came to actually putting it on a project; I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do with a sequin-covered heart at this point…

I was fairly sure how I was going to sew them, but I thought I’d double-check with YouTube to see if there was a trick I was missing. I found a fascinating belly dancing channel which had some really clear sequin and beading tutorials (among many other things).

It took a while to sew them all on with their seed beads, but it was quite relaxing once I’d got the hang of it.

Then I had to work out what to do with the finished heart.

I had been experimenting with decoupaging a small chalkboard frame which had turned out okay, but it wasn’t inspiring me to create with it as it was. The pink paper I’d used didn’t fit with the heart so I tried toning it down using some antique varnish. Better but still not great, so I just gave it a light coat of acrylic paint which lets some of the underlying pattern show through.

I was about to say that I kept the design simple, then I mentally listed the supplies that got used — paper flowers edged with gold acrylic paint, purple tissue paper to support the heart, the beautiful chipboard painted gold, gold microbeads, clear domed embellishments, purple gemstones, and fine decoration gravel coloured purple — the overall layout is simple, the detail isn’t.

I often bemoan the fact that shiny things can be hard to photograph, but these sequins take that one step further: depending on the lighting, they can be quite hard to focus on when you look at them! (And, weirdly, photographed reasonably well.)