You Win Some, You Lose Some {DIY: Canvas Art}

I love do-it-yourself projects. The sense of accomplishment and the low price tag that usually comes along with a project make it even better. My favorites are the ones that look incredibly difficult and time consuming, but were actually super easy. My least favorites are the ones that not only are incredibly time consuming, but are also really not worth the pay off in the end. But it happens to everyone - not every project turns out wonderfully and that's okay because it teaches us to try again.

I was inspired by some projects I saw on Pinterest and decided to create canvas art with a long quote on it for Josh. I bought the canvas at Michael's, painted it a tan shade, and then used a stencil to outline where I wanted each word. My plan was to go back and, using green paint, paint in each stencil. I got through the first two letters before I realized that that plan wasn't going to work. So I switched things up. I went back to Michael's and bought oil pastels:

Confession: I may have had a small oil pastel obsession for some time when I was a teenager and may have used them to draw all over my walls. It's a small wonder that my parents didn't disown me for doing this.

And success! But very short-lived success. As I worked my way down the canvas, no matter how many times I stopped to wash the stencil, it would inevitably drag the green crayon down, resulting in green marks and lots of stencil bleeding.

So, being only halfway done with my canvas, I thought maybe I'd just give up. But first, I showed Josh what I was doing and told him that I was sorry but I was going to try again. And you know what? Josh loved it! And he asked me to keep going. So I set out looking for another solution and I thought of colored pencils. So I finished using the colored pencils and then tried to trace over them with some of the oil crayons in an attempt to make them darker. That sort of worked.


I'm not thrilled with it, but it's sort of homey and I definitely learned a lot about the process. I'm going to try again using the painting and sticker method in the next few weeks and hoping it turns out a lot better. Sometimes things are just so much better when you create them in your mind then when you actually execute them, huh? For now though, it hangs in our closet - next to the elephant art - waiting to be switched out.


Close-Up



From far away, it doesn't even look that bad...

Have any of you ever been so sure a project was going to turn out beautifully just to have it fall a little flat? Were you able to turn it around mid-project or did you keep trying to no avail like I did? I'd love to hear from you - about your project successes and your project failures! Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday!