License to Love

Actually, I should have called this “tough love”.

 Have you ever tried to cut a pattern out of a license plate?  Sure, cutting a straight line is easy, but a heart...  Now that’s another story.  This will be my one and only heart made from metal that is this thick.  What made it that much harder, is the fact that the plates have the convolutions from the numbers and letters in them.

~Anyway~

This is what I started with.

I cut a heart shape from paper for my pattern.

I laid the pattern on top of the backside of my license plate

and traced it with a permanent marker.

Okay, that was the easy part.  

Then comes trying to cut the blasted thing!

When I was not in a curve, it was not so bad.  But it was a bear in the bend.  I would cut for a minute then clip into that area and “chunk” out a section.

And so it went until I had my heart completed cut out.

I was using my daddy’s old tin snips (at least I think that’s what they are called).  He would have been proud.  Actually, he probably would have said something like, “Monkey, you don’t need to try and such a crazy thing!"

I must admit, I beamed with pride a little bit after seeing the “fruits of my labor”.

Next, I took a metal file (another one of my dad’s old tools) and went around the edges to smooth out any sharp areas.

In order for my paint to stick to the metal plate, I hit it with a coat of clear primer/sealer.

Next, I brushed on a coat of gray paint as a base.

Brushing didn’t work so well, 

so I pulled out my sea sponge and just dabbed on the paint.

I used and hammer and awl (you guessed it, more of my daddy’s treasured tools)

and pierced a hole at the top and bottom of my heart. 

These holes allow for my hanger and embellishment.

I mixed some Gesso and white metal paint together to use for my accent color.

I used a "sequin waste” as a stencil and “pounched” (with my sea sponge) some of my 

white paint mixture on various parts of

the heart.

Using a Q-tip, I wiped some black acrylic paint around the edges to help 

define my shape and give it some depth.

I hung an old crystal from a chandelier in the bottom hole.

I used white organdy ribbon for a hanger and accented it with a snippet of pearls.

A labor of love!