Canvas DIY

EDIT: November 2013 - Thank you for visiting our blog! Please feel free to click around. Thank you your interest!




This past Christmas I decided to DIY all of my Christmas gifts. It's more personal because you made it by hand, and because you can give your loved ones exactly what they want. It was fun discovering what I wanted to give my sisters through looking at their Pinterest boards (especially their "DIY" and "Products I Love" boards. So either I could create one of their DIYs or create something they would want to buy.)

I decided to give my older sister, Natalie, a painted canvas with a message. I originally had this idea for my friend Dee Dee, because I wanted to paint a canvas that has song lyrics on it. Dee Dee and I have gone to many Jimmy Eat World concerts so I wanted to use their song lyric, "You gave us some place to go" from their song Hear You Me. So I made a canvas for both of them. I modified this DIY that I found on Pinterest. Here & here are similar ones as well.

Here's what you'll need:

• Canvas (Michael's)
• Letter Stickers (Michael's)
• Paint (1 or more colors)
• Paint Brush

Start by spacing your letters evenly on your canvas and lightly placing them (give yourself the opportunity to move them if necessary). I used an L shape ruler and drew light horizontal lines. Something great that I learned is the stickers can be reused after painting. After the letters are placed where you want, firmly place the letters on the canvas. The letters didn't stick very well to the blank canvas, so keep that in mind.

After all of the letters are placed, begin painting over them. Because the letters didn't stick very well to the blank canvas, make sure when your painting that the letters do not lift up when your brush goes across them.

After the paint has dried, begin removing the stickers carefully, you want to be able to reuse them!

Here's how the first one turned out. The paint got under the stickers a few times so I touched it up with white paint.

Then I got started on Natalie's canvas. Natalie, just like Karissa & I, is a huge fan of green. So I decided that she would have green letters. First, I painted the canvas where the letters would be. I reused the letters from the previous canvas. They stuck really well to the painted canvas.

I then made some grey paint by combining white and black paint and began to paint over the letters.

Because the letters stuck better than the last round there weren't many touch ups to be made.

And here they are! It took me about 2 hours to complete both of them. :)

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- Christina @city_loveee