Since Valentines is in a couple of days, I decided to make heart shaped gems but I didn’t have any small wooden hearts so I actually used foam board instead, which worked out pretty well.

Supplies: Foam Board, Scissors, Acrylic Paint in main color + white and black paint, Gold Paint Pen, Mod Podge Gloss

1. Sketch out your heart(s) onto a scrap of foam board. Mine are about 1.5″ wide.

2. Cut them out. You can use scissors or a craft knife, whichever works better for you.

3. Use your pencil to lightly sketch out where to paint. I sketched a smaller heart on the inside of my heart and then drew lines going outward where the corners are.

4. Paint the center of your heart with your main color.

5. Mix a bit of white paint with your main color and paint one side, mixing in more white as you paint the different sections.
Mix a TINY bit of black paint with the main color and repeat the last step on the opposite side of your heart.

Fabric Paper Glue has a really good tutorial for showing how to mix the paints here.

6. Use a gold paint pen to gild the edges of your heart.

7. Go over your hearts with a coat of Mod Podge. I used the gloss version, but I think some Dimensional Magic would look really cool on these.

I love how these look 3d, but as you can see in the last picture they are completely flat. It’s just an optical illusion made with the different colors!

I used mine as embellishments on a couple of cute, easy cards. Some patterned paper, vellum, stamping and doodling and they’re done!