Project Update: Wedding Present Almost Finished

For many weeks, I've had a partially completed wedding gift for my sister's step daughter on my worktable. The background has been finished for a while, but each time I would sit down to finish it, I found myself unhappy with the embellishments and would set it aside. On Friday, I realized it has been a whole month since the wedding, and that I needed to push myself a bit to finish it up.

The project is based on an IKEA mirror covered with patterned paper. I'm using a piece of glass over the picture. This is a picture I took of the happy couple a year ago. They can substitute a wedding picture in its place.

I purchased a 7 Gypsies clip to use to hold the glass and photo in place. I didn't believe a glue would hold the metal clip (with its spring) to the wood, but several people told me Ultimate would work. So I tried it. It not only didn't work, the glue adhered the paper background to the metal clip, separating it from the wooden substrata, creating a bit of a mess. I ended up using two screws, smashing my thumb in the process. But it holds beautifully and the repairs underneath are invisible. (I'm not naming the names of the people who told me this would work. You know who you are!)

Here is the project before the glue disaster (and subsequent screwing) with the word tiles roughly in place. I removed the glass from the photo because of the glare from the flash.



After getting the clip mounted, I was so excited about the project's momentum that I pulled out everything I had considered to use as embellishment. In the midst of this, I was invited to come and work at Melissa's house. In spite of technology problems, cell phone problems, and even GPS problems, I managed to arrive (somewhat late) and work on the project. After a few hours of snipping away at beautiful fake red roses, stringing seed beads and other beads to a very thin wire, and tying a huge bow with French wired ribbon, the project was nearly completed.



I wanted to give the glue 24 hours to dry before I finished fussing with the project. I need to trim the ribbon tails, turn the P into an R, and add a hanger on the back. (Did you catch that in the photo?) I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. If I was starting over, there are changes I would make.

1. I thought the letters would look better if the spacing wasn't so perfect, but I'm not quite happy with the placement I used.

2. I would rework the rose placement to make it higher. The rose seems to hang a bit low over the photo, even though it is not significantly lower than just the clip. I tried to keep the clip mechanism easily accessible so they can change out the picture later.

3. I would rethink the amount of embellishment. I had planned for more embellishment, but decided to simplify. I like the addition of the beads strung into the ribbon, even with the addition of new colors. Perhaps with the rose higher, I could have included a bit more.

Overall, I'm pleased that I've created a memory art item that captures their engagement and will hold a wedding photo. I think they will really like it. I do like this framing option, using a clip to hold a sheet of glass, and will use it again.