DIY: Easy Canvas Art

So this isn't one of my typical fashion posts as you can see. This past week I was feeling pretty crafty, I blame Pinterest for all my crafting whims. I've been slowly redecorating and reorganizing our house. It's become a little chaotic here now that Baby Sis is starting to try and walk.  Anyways, I've been trying to incorporate more metallics into the decor. But I hadn't found that many art pieces that I've really liked or that are affordable. So I decided to jump on Pinterest and see what I could put together myself that would be chic, modern, and easy to create. I'm on a very tight timeline given that I'm a SAHM. I don't really have much time to myself, so I definitely didn't want a project that would be too time consuming. And this is what I came up with, check it out. I was able to create both the chevron and "LOVE" canvas art pieces in one afternoon. I've been dying to try a chevron canvas painting. And the "LOVE" painting looked cute and seemed to be fitting since Valentine's Day is right around the corner. [Big Sis C also wanted to add her own art work to the mantle.]

Supplies: 2 canvases, wooden letters, hot glue gun, paint, brushes, painter's tape

Creating the chevron stencil and taping the pattern on to the canvas was the most time consuming part. And even that didn't take more the 30 mins. I say 30 mins because I was constantly running between taping and getting the girls their sippy cups, disbanding fights, you know the typical mom thing. Now after you've taped the chevron print on the canvas, make sure to go back and press down the edges tightly. This will help keep the paint from seeping under the tape. 

Once you've done that, go ahead and start painting on whatever color you have chosen. I chose a metallic silver. Make sure you spend a little extra money and use canvas paints. I made the mistake once of using regular craft acrylic paints and well that just didn't stick to the canvas well. It just was too runny. Canvas paint is a bit thicker and sticks to the canvas more. Also the color is more saturated.

Next up is the "LOVE" canvas. This one took only a few minutes to put together. I first painted the letters and put them out in the sun to dry. They dried in about 10 minutes. For these, I used just the craft acrylic paints. I liked the idea of the white letters on a white canvas for a monochromatic look. I also painted the canvas with the same white paint just to make sure that the white of the letters would match the canvas. Because the canvas was already white I didn't worry too much about using the craft acrylic paint instead of a canvas paint. 

I really wanted to incorporate the metallic theme into this piece too. So I chose to paint the "O" silver and to make it pop I angled the letter instead of having it lined straight up with the rest of the letters. Now, as I mentioned craft acrylic paints are a bit runny, because they're water based. And the metallics are even more runny and very thin. I first put a coat of silver on the "O" only to realize it wasn't showing up on the wood. So I took a chance and painted a quick coat of white paint on the "O" using it kind of as a primer for the silver paint. Once it dried, I tried painting it silver again. Wow! What a huge difference it was. Even still, I found that it needed another coat to really get it to the color that I wanted.

Once all the letters were dry, I just lined them up on the canvas where I wanted them, made a few small marks on the canvas so that I would know where to place letters when I went to glue them down. 

And Voila! All Done! I thought these were so easy to make and added a nice touch to our bare mantel. 

Sorry the pictures aren't better. I wasn't really prepared to take pictures. 

And here's Big Sis C creating artwork of her own. 

Thanks for reading and please feel free to share some of your crafty creations. I'm looking for some more ideas.

XO,