Shabby Chic Hanging Heart

So today, even though I have a list as long as my arm of other things I should/could do, my procrastination skills out-shone me and once the children left with their father for the rest of the weekend I decided to try something that wasn't on the list.

I blame the cream coloured upholstery fabric I picked up in a charity shop for £1.00 this week - it was just begging to be used for something quickly and I had in mind something lacy and tattered and definitely shabby chic in style.  Last night I happened upon a tutorial for a hanging heart here at Handmade Habour written by the talented Wendy and was itching to get going.

I've seen others like this and so wanted to create something a little less flat and so padded out the first and second layer and then just added as many little layers as I could.  In my stash of "things to use sometime" I have some fabric onto which I printed some vintage images with my inkjet printer so I added her and then embellished the whole thing with vintage buttons and rhinestones and as a finishing touch made a beaded tassel for the bottom.  There's room for improvement but I'm pretty happy with how it looks and I can see that there's opportunities to add secret pockets and scented petals to really make the most of the romantic nature of this.

Here's some of the fabrics and trims I sifted through to make it:

And here's what I made:

I'd love to know what you think.

Because I think this piece is quite romantic I'm going to enter it into the Vintage Elusions challenge.

And because I used Wendy's tutorial (and because I've not added anything for ages) I'm going to link this to Handmade Monday over at the Handmade Harbour and then a little later tonight I shall enjoy looking at what everyone else has been up to.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend x