Pintrest Project #3: Falling in Love Tree

Level of Difficulty: Middle of the Road

Cost: $

Time: 1 hour

Point of the Project: to make a memento of a song or other words that are important to you and a loved one.

This is a project I found posted on Pintrest that was pinned from a seller on Etsy. This seller will do them for you for $72, but I thought with a little creative thinking I could make them for much less. Which I did. It only cost me roughly $11!!! This would be a great gift for anniversaries!

Materials:

• A pre-matted frame to hold an 8x11 picture ( Mine is a cheap frame from Wal-Mart that cost me $3.00 or so)
• 1 8x11 sheet of paper that has the lyrics of your song printed repeatedly down the whole page (white printer paper from home)
• Scissors (had at home)
• Colored scrapbook paper (Hobby Lobby, $0.59)
• Matching colored embroidery thread (Hobby Lobby, $0.98)
• Scotch Foam Mounting Tape (Target, $5.99)
• Pencil
• Computer with internet and printer

Directions:

1. Find the lyrics to the song you want to use, or the poem, etc...from the intenet and copy and paste them into a Word document. Be sure to put the song into a continuous format (See example below)

"Then" I remember trying not to stare the night that I first met you. You had me mesmerized.  And three weeks later in the front porch light taking 45 minutes to kiss goodnight. I hadn't told you yet I thought I loved you then. Now you're my whole life. Now you're my whole world. I just can't believe the way I feel about you girl. Like a river meets the sea, stronger than its ever been. We've come so far since that day and I thought I loved you then. I remember taking you back to right where I first met you. You were so surprised. There were people around, but I didn't care. I got down on one knee right there and once again I thought I loved you then. Now you're my whole life. Now you're my whole world. I just can't believe the way I feel about you girl.  Like a river meets the sea, stronger than its ever been. We've come so far since that day,
and I thought I loved you then.

  2. Fill the entire page with the lyrics by repeatedly copy and pasting them and then print it out with very narrow margins.

3. Turn the page over with the letters facing away from you and free hand sketch a tree without leaves that takes up the entire page. Make sure you complete a bottom branch on one side of the tree so that you can tie your hearts on it. The branches on the top can be incomplete as the will look like they continue behind the frame.

4. Cut out your tree and compare it to the matte on your frame. Make adjustments as needed.

5. Use the Foam Mounting Tape and cut out pieces to stick to the back side of the tree from the trunk to the branches to give your tree a 3D effect. IMPORTANT: for the lowest branch you are going to hang your hearts on, leave space to tie your thread!!! Remove backing from the tape and stick to your background paper so that the ends touch the matting on the frame(I used the backside of the glossy paper that came in my frame). You may have to do some adjustments with your scissors, which is fine.

6. Open a new Word Document and use a font you like to Type the initials that you want (mine were "C" and "T"). Space them well enough apart and from the edge of the page that you can cut out a small heart around them.

7. Use this heart template from stencilease and print it at 30% of original image size. This will be your template for your hearts.

8. Cut out your heart stencil and trace the shape onto your colored paper covering your initial.

9. Cut out your colored paper with the initials on it.

10. Loop two pieces of varying length colored embroidery thread around the lowest tree branch of your choice and tie into a small bow.

11. Then use a piece of foam mounting tape to hold the loop end of your thread (not where the bow is!) to your background paper. They should look like they are hanging straight down. Take off the backing from the foam mounting tape and attach your hearts to cover it.

Congrats! You're all done!