My lovely friend M recently announced that she and her husband are pregnant with their second child. With an invitation to dinner last night, I wanted to bring something with me to celebrate this new addition to their family. For good reasons, they have an affinity for lambs and so I knew this would be my starting point. At first, I was going to create a single lamb, in honour of the new addition and knew I had a picture frame in my stockpile that would be perfect. Until I couldn't find it! So I went with plan B as soon as I found a square canvas that would be a great alternative. As I was looking through the supplies I had on hand, I was struck by the idea of using texture as the primary design element. M has beautiful taste - clean and classic with a touch of French Country is how I would describe it. So my project needed to reflect this as well. The process ended up being pretty simple. A coat of off-white paint on the canvas to start. A paper template of the lamb body on a sheet of paper that's exactly one quarter of the size of the canvas. Then I did a quick test of materials within the body template to make sure that they would work visually the way I wanted. All the pieces are secured with Aleen's Clear Drying glue and the head and legs were painted on afterwards. The 'mama' lamb is actually a vintage 3 strand faux-pearl necklace that I swirled around inside the body template to make sure it captured the shape properly. Then I added more faux-pearls off a vintage cuff-style bracelet. You can probably see the small rust stains on the holes of the bead - I left them because they added another colour & detail which, I felt, provided some visual interest. Daddy lamb is all buttoned down in similar-toned buttons in varying sizes. Baby blue lamb (for their 1st baby) is a piece of felted wool with a subtle cable knit pattern. Baby cream lamb (for the new baby) is also made of felted wool but cut into chunks to give it a nubby texture. When I was done putting on the body, head and legs I wasn't quite happy with it. What I was looking at didn't match the aesthetic in my head and I couldn't figure out why. ...not quite happy with the lambs at this point I actually took a picture and sent it to my cousin (who has an amazing sense of design - check out the stunning jewelry she makes @ Shiny Bits) for a fresh set of eyes. As I was waiting for her email back, I took a piece of cream felt I had and cut it into a small ear. When I put it on it all came together. So I cut three more and added all four with a dot of glue on the top of each head. It does need a frame of some sort still, but I'll have to look for that another day because my little lambs are now living in their new home. I think M genuinely liked it and I'm so happy that it worked out! - Jacs