All this week, we're celebrating Christmas in July over at Kerri Bradford Studio. Kerri's got brand new Christmas stamps, a fun sale going on, and new projects from her design team all week long! And today it's my turn to share.
I'm not one to do altered projects very often, but when Kerri mentioned "home decor" as something fun she'd like to see for this week, I had the perfect idea. I have two 12x12" frames that hang by my front door year-round. I like to keep our Christmas decor super simple, and one of the three areas that I actually decorate in the house is our entryway by the front door. I had the idea to create two 12x12" altered canvases that could be hung in place of those frames during the Christmas holiday.
I knew I would keep the canvases pretty simple, overall, but I did want to make sure they had some texture and interest to them. This is where a few cut files from Kerri, along with some Silhouette chipboard, came in. I also used chalkboard paint, texture paste, silver metallic paint, silver glitter paint, and some black misting spray. All of these combined gave me just the texture I was looking for.
I picked out a circle background from Kerri's More Background Basics kit, and cut two of them at 6" in size. While it would have been much easier to work with one large piece, to cover the entire canvas at once, the circles would have been much larger than I wanted if I had cut it at 12" in size. So I just used the 6" background piece and figured I would move it around as needed.
I also picked out two Christmas words from Kerri's Merry Everything kit to feature on my canvases, and cut each one three times from the chipboard. The Silhouette chipboard is on the thinner side, but it's easy enough to layer 2-3 pieces together, to make a thicker word.
The die cut circle pieces were going to act as stencils for this project. I laid the stencil on the canvases and spread texture paste over it. This was my first time using texture paste, and while I wasn't exactly very neat about it, I like how it turned out. After I finished one corner of the canvas, I lifted the stencil carefully and moved it around until the entire canvas was covered.
Once the texture paste was dry, I painted the entire canvas with 2 coats of metallic silver paint.
After the metallic paint dried, I painted the entire canvas with 2 coats of silver glitter paint.
Once the glitter paint was dry, I spritzed both canvases with black misting spray. I should be transparent here, and say that I'm not sure the misting ever fully dried. I didn't think that one all the way thru. Lol. Might have been better to mist it before adding the glitter paint?
I adhered the three chipboard words together, for each word, and then painted each word with black chalkboard paint. I gave them both two coats of paint.
Once chalkboard paint dries, you have to "condition" the paint. I learned this when I painted one wall in Sarah's room with black chalkboard paint, and then looked it up on Pinterest to find out what to do to it next. You simple rub a piece of white chalk all over the paint.
Then you use a slightly damp rag to rub chalk in a circular motion until you get the look you desire. I couldn't remember if I was supposed to use a damp cloth or a dry one, and I actually ended up using both a little. Too much chalk came off some areas of the words, so I just rubbed some more chalk on and then rubbed it back off. I just played around until they looked right.
Once the canvases and my chipboard words were painted and dry, I adhered a word to each canvas, in the bottom right corner using glue dots.
The three layers of chipboard together made just the right thickness I was hoping for. This was my first time using the Silhouette chipboard and I know I'll be using it a lot more now. It cut perfectly!
I wanted to add a little something else to the canvases, but nothing that stood out too much. I remembered these silver glittered enamel dots that I've had forever, and they were the perfect, simple embellishment. I adhered a handful of the enamels to each canvas, adding them to the centers of the circles.
This was by far the messiest project I've made in a really long time. Even though it really wasn't all that messy. I don't get very "artsy" that often, so the fact that I used several paints and texture paste was pretty impressive. At least to me it was.
These canvases will fit in perfectly with my simple Christmas decorations. I hate that I have to put them away for months before it's the right time to take them out and hang them up. Feels sad to put something pretty and sparkly away, but I'm sure people would think I was crazy if I hung them up now ;)
Make sure and stop by Kerri's blog all this week, to see what else she has going on and see what the rest of the team is creating!
this is a great idea, Laura
I have a bunch of canvases that could turn into holiday decor or gifts
(I read the first line of your last paragraph as it was the "merriest" project you've done in a long time - ha!
Posted by: christi in ma | July 20, 2016 at 11:36 AM
this is SO cute!
Posted by: Diana | July 20, 2016 at 03:58 PM