{what i made} :: bloom OR close call :: almost a craft fail

happy friday, friends!

well, here goes my first kind-of tutorial/almost craft fail. let's see how i do. i'm sure you've seen all the really cool canvas projects that have been floating around pinterest. this project really struck me ::

 {original source}

you take a canvas, mod podge a background to it, & stick some letter stickers on. then you paint over the whole thing & when it's dry, peel the stickers off to reveal the background.

it's really that simple. so, i tried one. my kids tried one. they all were totally different, completely cool & they all worked. next things you know, i'm hosting workshops in my denver studio. so cool. i know everyone walked away happy with their new piece of wall art. {i'll show you some of these pieces in a future blog post}

anyway, i digress. the other day, when i was at the thrift store, i ran across this cool piece of art.

 

it's hard to see, but the frame, so to speak, was made of linen tape of some kind. it definitely was vintage. i loved the colors and thought it would make a cool canvas. for $5.99, i thought i'd give it a go. plus it saved me the somewhat time consuming step of creating my own background on the canvas.

once i got my lovely.little.piece. home, i noticed how dingy and stained the canvas frame thingy was. never fear...bleach to the rescue!

  i just dabbed full strength bleach on the canvas tape with a terry cloth towel and all the stains were gone! 

so, on to the fun part. (this is where you join along & start to make your own)

first, the letters. i bought mine at michael's. these are 3" tall, but they have a variety of sizes and fonts. if i were using a longer quote or phrase, i'd go with the 2" letters.

make sure your letters cover up the part of the art that you want to see at the end. the letters are literally protecting the art from the paint. well, they're supposed to. more on that in a bit.

i forgot to take a picture, but i also added a little scallop trip at the bottom cut from a vintage dictionary page. you can barely see it on the finished product.

next, the paint. i chose turquoise. just a plain ol' acrylic paint from michael's. (good thing there's one just blocks from my house!). i used a foam brush from you-know-where and painted it til i thought it was thick enough. i used a dry brush.

 

when i taught the workshop at my studio, people experimented with a wet brush, a dry brush, squirting the paint directly on the canvas, using a light hand, using a heavy hand. you get the picture. this project is yours, and you really can't mess it up. a great comfort to the perfectionist in all of us!

i waited a few minutes for the paint to dry, then peeled off the letters, expecting to see crisp clean lines, the bright colors of the flowers underneath and pretty much, a finished product. instead, here's the reveal ::

 

it's not pretty, but here's a closer look ::

you can see the lines from the stickers, but somehow the paint seeped underneath. yikes! now what? a couple of years ago, i would have trashed the whole project. but, what fun is that?! you still could see the floral background, and after a few minutes, i decided that the uneven lines looked kind of cool and gave the piece some character. so, what to do next?

i looked around my studio and decided that i could make my own definition. with what, you ask? just a plain black sharpie! yay! look how defined the letters are now. all i did was outline around the sticker indentations. much better!

done, right? wrong. i thought my 'bloom' looked a bit lonely in that sea of bright blue. so, i looked around again & found my favorite vintage dictionary and ripped out a page. if i liked my freehand lettering style, i would have just used my sharpie & written out the rest of my saying. but i don't. so i stuck the dictionary page in my printer, found a font i loved, typed the words in microsoft word, and hit print. then, i cut them out and mod podged them right on top of the paint.

i took the picture while the podge was still wet but trust me, it dries clear. oh yes, the garland at the top. i just added that on a whim, because i thought the whole thing looked a bit unbalanced with all that blue at the top. and if my photo was centered, you'd see a little dab of blue paint on my wonderfully white frame (you can actually see it in the all blue picture above). wait til you see what i did to cover that boo boo.

i podged a flower right over it. kind of goes with the theme, i think.

and, that's all there is to it. here's the finished product ::

i'm quite happy with the finished result, even though disaster loomed a few times while i was crafting! if you try your hand at this quick, fun craft, please post a photo of your finished product. i'd love to see what you've been up to. and, if nothing else, know that if things don't always go your way, just drink that lemonade!

have a fantastic weekend! see you next week.

xo, anne