When we left Kansas, I was highly encouraged (read: forced) to cut back on my possessions. We had to fit everything in a crate to be shipped, after all! When we arrived in California, I quickly realized that we had a lot more wall-space for frames and art and photos than we had before, and I had just recently trimmed back my wall-art collection. (Not by much, we still had multiple boxes full of frames, but I just love my wall collages!) Our bathroom upstairs had an especially large empty wall, so I rifled through my craft supplies in the garage to see what I could come up with for that space. The result was the following. A super easy, super quick craft that adds just the right feel to our "vintage" (1970's) bathroom, and moderns it up just a bit.
I started with two large, blank, white canvases.
I used painter's tape to block out stripes horizontally. I eye'd these and tried to separate each length of tape the same width as the tape, as to create even lines. It's not as hard as you'd think to make these straight. If you start with one end of the canvas, using the edge as a guide, you've got your straight line. And with painter's tape, I would just remove and re-set every time it looked a little off.
I did two canvases, but this project could be done with one or more, and of any size, depending on the space needing to be filled!
I pulled out my old paint collection. It really needs to be updated, but I am committed to using up what I have before buying any more. I have a specific color scheme in the bathroom, and of course, I didn't have the paint to match. (Does anyone ever?) So I found some blues, white and black to mix to make a dusty blue.
I also had Baby Kitty (full name is Trace) watching and "helping". Thanks baby!
I had some of the curtain fabric from the bathroom to help me match the blue. I just used a ceramic bowl and used trial and error until the color turned out right.
I used a craft sponge because I wanted the paint to go on pretty thinly. I really didn't want the paint to get under the tape, so I would start by painting the middle of the stripe and then carefully do the edges of each stripe painting away from the tape and towards the middle of the stripe. I would go over the stripe afterwards to even out the stroke of the sponge. On the corners, you can see a little white through the paint, showing the texture of the canvas, which I really liked. I did one coat of paint.
Please pardon my "vintage" (again, 1970's) carpet. It really isn't quite as orange in person!
My favorite part of the whole project was pulling off the tape. The lines turned out so crisp! Of course, wait for the paint to dry before pulling off the tape. If you use a thin layer of paint, this will only take 15 minutes or less.
Twins!
Next, I printed off the letters I wanted to use on the canvases. I had to add a text box to Word so that the letter could be as big as possible and go over the margins. I selected a font I liked, I used Desdemona for this project, and then used a razor blade to cut out the letter so I could use the paper as a stencil. Cut over a mat, like this one, to protect your tabletop!
Once I had a stencil, I taped it (as straight as possible!) to the canvas.
Then, I used another sponge to put a layer of Mod Podge inside of the letter. Be careful to not get any Mod Podge under parts of your stencil, or your letter will be messed up! Then I sprinkled it with large gold glitter. I love the look of the bigger grains of glitter, but any color, size or texture of glitter should work fine.
Do the same thing with another letter or image if you are making more than one canvas. Here's A for Alex!
After you let the glitter sit for a few minutes, you can take off the stencil, tap the extra glitter into a folded piece of paper or a filing folder, whatever will help you get the extra back into the glitter container. That's a lot of glitter to waste! Next, tap the extra glitter from the canvas off. Try to save that too.
The finished result! I love how crisp the stripes are, as well as the glitter letter! I was worried that the Mod Podge wouldn't be strong enough to hold the glitter, but it was! Let everything dry and then you're ready to hang your new creations!
I love how these turned out hanging in the bathroom. I put the K over my towel bar and behind my sink, and put the A on Alex's side. The blue matches the towels and curtains so well and these canvases definitely bring some life to this bathroom!
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| I spy a baby bump! |
|| Posted by Kate ||
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