My Altered Canvas

First - - I need to start with a confession......  I've been so excited about all of the ideas I'm finding in Blogland.  I just can't wait to jump in and try some of the projects I've seen!!!  So.....  I really got wrapped up in blog-stalking.....and I guess I lost my creative mo-jo.....  It seems like every project that I wanted to get done for Christmas just......... well......... didn't go the way I had planned.  I wanted to make a cookbook for my daughter.  Thought I would do it sort of like a scrapbook.......... but then I couldn't find the papers I wanted to use.....  I really had a problem finding papers with kitchen/recipes kind of themes.......  soooo  Then the project changed into a recipe box.  I bought 4 paper mache boxes to decorate up as recipe boxes.  I could do 4 and give the other 3 as gifts to my sister-in-laws and mom-in-law.  But I couldn't get past the fact that my daughter had asked for a recipe BOOK.....  So, I decided to type up and print recipes on cards and put them in the scrap book.......... Well.... I couldn't find a printable recipe card template that I liked.  And I scrapbook sooo slowly.....  And then........... I happened to stumble on MyComputerIsMyCanvas blog........ And the SOOO-PER CUTE recipe cards she made with Scrapbook Max! ....... AND - - they have a 30-day trial period.....  So I downloaded it and OH MY!!  It is exactly what I was looking for!!   So I bought the software and downloaded it!!  But by the time I went through all of this, and considering I had at least 50 recipes I wanted to do............  I didn't get all the way done.  :-(   But I am halfway and I will get it done soon!  The Scrapbook Max! software is soo simple to use!  I love it!!!

So my next project was an altered canvas for my son.....  It SHOULD have only taken me MAYBE 3 hours to do.  Well - it didn't!!  It took me close to seven hours.  And I didn't take enough during pictures because I had to keep redoing parts of it.............  The next day I seriously had a bruise on my forehead.......  not really, but I should have!!

Anyway, here's the after picture and my instructions on how I made it.

First, I started out with a blank, new canvas.  I didn't want it to be WHITE, so I painted it with some acrylic craft pain.  The color is 'Steamed Milk'.  I wanted it to be distressed, so I then painted some chocolate and olive on it, and then wiped it off.  It was just NOT giving it the effect I wanted so I repainted it Steamed Milk.  I remembered that I had a script stamp and used gold and chocolate ink with the stamp and stamped my canvas.  In some places, the stamp is defined and in other places it's sort of blurred, which was pretty cool.  I then just took my chocolate stamp pad and rubbed it on the edges and here and there on the face. 

Then came the part that really had me frustrated.  I printed my picture on regular paper and when I started to mod podge it to my canvas............ IT WRINKLED!!!  So I pulled the picture off and reprinted it and tried again...........  It took longer for the wrinkles to come and then when I tried to pull the picture off, it stuck.............  So there I sat with a knife, trying to scrape it off............  after about an hour........ I FINALLY got it off.  I reprinted my picture on card stock and just took my time working with the picture and the mod podge.  The edge only got a little wavy -- NO WRINKLES!!!     I put a couple of coats of mod podge on the whole thing.  Tied the jute around it.  Painted the words on my heart and wrapped wire around it and attached it to the jute.  Stapled jute on the back to hang it with and there you go!!  I was really worried that my son wouldn't like it but he loved it............  YAY ME!!!


Thanks for looking and let me know if you have any questions!!!  

Hugs ~ Suz


I'm joining in  on: