Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Get Well Soon

One of my students visited and told me that he would like to see more DIY on my blog.
So CG, this post is for you! ;)

One of our Aunts was feeling under the weather...
...and we didn't want to just send a card.

...so we decided to make her something.
It is so much better than giving just a card.
And you can personalize it in so many ways.
With Valentine's day just around the corner, it's the perfect gift to make.

The materials that you need are:
Canvas
Paint brush or paint sponge
Paint (we used acrylic)
Thin fabric scraps
scissors
paint markers (we used Painters brand)
decoupage medium (we used Royal Coat brand)
paper plate
pencil
Paper (we used a napkin) ;)

So here's what you do.
Step 1.
Paint your entire canvas. 
 If you want to skip this step and leave your background white you can do so.
We painted ours black.
Let the canvas dry completely.
This drying is very important.

Step 2.
Cut hearts out of your fabric scraps.
It doesn't matter what size and how many.
This depends completely on how you want your canvas to look.

We wanted my hearts to fill the canvas so we would have cut out 30 total.
But we had 4 messages for Aunt Mary.
So we only cut out 26 hearts.

Step 3.
Lay them out on the canvas the way you want it to look.
This is where you should take your time.
Make sure that you like the layout before you proceed to the next phase.

Step 4.
Turn a heart upside down on the paper plate.

Step 5.
And brush the entire surface with the découpage medium.

Step 6.
Place the heart where you want it on the canvas.
Do this process for all the hearts~laying it however you want your canvas to look.

Step 7.
For your messages, take your pencil and sketch it out on paper
depending on how you want it to look on the canvass.
This will take a little bit of practice depending on the design and layout you want.
We purposely chose certain words for the theme and its word length.

Step 8.
Once you have practiced the lettering and the design,
Replicate it onto the canvas.
Repeat the process onto the canvas with your paint marker.
We chose silver because we knew it would really stand out against the black.
Repeat this process for all your words or messages.
It is important that the marker dries completely.
(notice the heart next to it drying.  It was just decoupaged.)

Step 9.
Bush the entire front surface of the heart with the decoupage medium.
Be liberal with the medium.
~especially at the edges to make sure that the edges are really glued down.
Do  this for all the hearts.

Step 10.
Once you've finished decoupaging the front surface of the hearts then
completely brush all of the canvas with the medium including over the messages.
As you can see, there were some places where the marker was not completely dry.
This caused it to smear when the medium was applied.  
This will also happen on step 4 if you don't let the base paint dry completely.

Step 11.
Let it thoroughly dry in a place where dirt cannot stick on it while curing.

The great thing about this project is that it can be designed to be in any color scheme
to fit in any home.  It is fun, easy and a great project for kids.
This can be personalized with people's name or signatures.

Please send me a picture of your finished canvas if you do decide to do this!
I' d love to see how yours turns out. ;)


This post is partying at:
The Turquoise Home : Work It Wednesday #31 

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