This Valentine’s Day I thought I would do something a little more personal for my Mister.  Not usually one to take on crafty projects, I was uber inspired by two sweet DIYs I stumbled upon on Pinterest.  (Don’t you just love that place?)  I decided to take my project a little bit further and combine the two projects, so here’s my take on this lovely idea.  I hope you enjoy!

Step One: Think about the places that are important to you and your hunnie and select a frame size.  I want to use four hearts, so I chose this beautiful 12×12 ”Stacked Frame” from Etsy vendor Rusty Mill.  Depending on how many keys/hearts/locations you want to use, your size can vary.  I found that four locations also works well in an 8×10 but I wanted to use larger hearts.

Step Two: Layout your frame.  I have four homes that I want to include so I tested a few different sizes of heart cutouts for my layout and picked my favorites.  I googled “heart clip art” and found a shape that I prefer and printed it in various sizes – 3×5, 4×6, 5×7 and then I ended up shrinking the 5×7 one just slightly to make my perfect ♥.

Step Three:  Fill your hearts!  I love the map cutouts from my inspirational photo but I wanted to be a bit more personal.  I printed 5×7 photos of each of our four homes.  No need for glossy photo paper, I want them to look more vintage-esque.

Step Four: Cut out your ♥s.  I traced my perfectly adorable heart clip art over my four printed pictures then grabbed my scissors.

Step Five: Glue your heart cutouts to a background sheet, colored stock paper welcome! I used a natural canvas scrapbook background (12×12 – perfect!) and 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive.  (That stuff is the jam.  Extra sticky, works with every fabric/surface and doesn’t glue me to my desk.)  Then write your cute little descriptions underneath each heart.

Step Six:  Glue the keys to the corresponding homes right on top of the photo hearts.  Use a super strong glue so you don’t have to use a lot of liquid and ruin the photos.  I used the 3M spray for this as well but if I was at home I would have used tiny dabs of Crazy Glue to be tidier.

And we’re done!  So excited to hang this in our new home.  Enjoy! ♥

xoxo, L

Notes: My polish color is Turqoise & Caicos by Essie. 

And yes, these are iPhone photos – left my camera at home!

I LOVE my distressed frame from Rusty Mill; but I’m ordering it in a brushed white instead since the finished product is a little more aqua than anticipated and my home’s walls are a stealy blue.  However, this aqua one will look beautiful with a snapshot of our beachside adventures!

Our wall color is Autumn Fog by Valspar.