Autumn heart

Among all the things I have in my stash, I happened to find a set  of plain wooden hearts in one of my drawers. I must have bought them quite a while ago as I don't remember where they come from, but as I'm recently working with napkin decoupage, I thought I might as well use some of my smaller napkin motifs to create a little autumn ornament.
I decided to make one heart as a try-and-see project to figure out wheter they'd be suitable for what I had in mind, and this is the result: 

Once I've covered the heart in multiple layers of acrilic paint and crackle varnish, I let it dry overnight. Then, I tried to figure out how to place those autumn leaves and swirls in a way that would fully use the heart-shaped space without making it look too crowded. 
In the end, I went with three cut-outs on each side, carefully applying multiple layers of transparent varnish to seal the cracked surface. 

Once that was done, I was looking for a way to turn the decoupage heart into a pendant. I took a dark brown cotton cord which I decorated with a couple of wooden beads: a coloured oval one to unite the threads and fix the first knot, and a plain round one right where the loop would start with another simple knot. 
In between the beads, I created a swirl using a set of surgical knots.
Because that was literally the first thing that came to my mind during basic knotting training.

Me, as soon as I realized that a repeated set of surgical knots would create a spyral: "What a cute spyral, that must look great in a bracelet or necklace!"
My friend next to me: "OMG, are you serious?"
Me: "Well, but just look at the swirl, and imagine to just keep going, that would make an awesome spyrally cord, and now just imagine a couple of beads..."
My friend: *trying hard to contain herself*
Ooops!

Turns out the swirl is good not only for imaginary bracelets, but also a leaf-ish autumn pendant :)
And as such, the heart will probably end up at said friend, partly as decoration and partly as proof of my knotting theory. Ooops!

A little contribution to the September collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

More autumn clours, slowly taking over park Tivoli and Rožnik hill...

... while underneath the colourful leaves, more and more of autumn's treasures can be discovered each day.

challenges: 
- 4 crafty chicks: ATG
- 613 avenue create: ATG with optional twist "CAS"
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- city crafter: fall colours
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty catz: ATG
- crafty gals corner: more than 3 layers (layers of paint & varnish)
- create and inspire: ATG
- creative moments: ATG
- bawion: shades of brown
- love to craft: ATG 
- love to scrap: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- use your stuff: friendship
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG