Finally, a Canvas with Self Esteem

See this blank canvas here? I've had it for a while. I bought it with a Joanne's coupon a while ago. I knew I wanted to do something fun with it when I bought it, but I wasn't sure exactly what. It's been sitting in my craft closet untouched. . . .like I said. . . for a while. "A while" meaning here about 3 years. Maybe 4 years? Five? What?! You don't let your craft supplies sit that long? Okay, so I know that's a long time, but I wanted to use it well. I was just waiting for the right inspiration to come along. But sadly, my canvas was getting a back of the closet complex. I was starting to feel guilty that I'd neglected her. This only added pressure to make sure that when I did use her, it had to be really great. It was becoming a viscious cycle! I even tried to ignore her sometimes, so I wouldn't feel bad.

Then, a couple of weeks ago Fancy tipped me off to a crafting blog called "Tatertots and Jello." I have quite liked her stuff, especially when she does a "craft round up" where she showcases other people's crafty home decor at the end of the week. Scrolling through her blog I came across this "Subway Art Tutorial".

Hey! That's cute! And I have a canvas just sitting in my closet waiting to fulfill its crafting duties. Once inspiration took, I didn't wait much longer. First I printed out some words that I thought would describe our family. And then cut them out. Notice I totally ran out of ink. I knew this was happening, but didn't worry as this was more of a "rough draft mock up".

After I thought about it I figured, why not print this out somewhere with some higher quality. Costco came to mind and I remembered they did poster size print outs. So I dusted off my photoshop skills (insert a muffled "bahaha" right here. They can hardly be described as skills; much more like ineptitudes). When I was feeling Photoshop Stymied, StarGirl, my 12 year old showed me what to do.

I was pleased and sent it off to costco for printing.
(Note: If you ever want to print something off at Costco and they tell you they can pring 20 by 30's, know that they really CAN'T do that. They just pretend too. We tried and tried to shrink this down to fit. We got close.)

First I painted my canvas black with helper Sunshine (Looking back,I don't know if we really needed to paint the whole thing black, but I didn't want to take any chances. Plus, it was fun. I could paint canvases with Sunshine all day!)

Then we broke out the matte Mod Podge and shellacked the whole thing on. I was afraid it might buckle or bend funny, but no. No problems at all. I'm loving the way it turned out. Actually, I think the canvas is happier now, like her self esteem is better with all these lively, hopeful words emblazoned on her. She is not longer hiding in the closet, she is hanging pretty on my wall. Its pretty obvious this canvas feels good about herself, right?