crafted: painted fabric canvases

It's  been a month and a half since I moved into my new place, and I haven't put up a single piece of decoration. Normally that's the first thing I do, but I really wanna make this place look nice and not like some college student's first apartment. I've been looking all over Pinterest and magazines and EVERYWHERE looking for ideas, and I still don't know where I'm gonna go with it, but I decided to make something for the awfully bare walls.

I went to AC Moore on Sunday when they had an extra 25% off everything in the store, and got a bunch of 16x20 canvases for $2.50 each! HELLO BARGAIN! I've always wanted to have some to play with, but there's one project I've been wanting to do.

Some people cover shoe box tops with fabric as decoration... I wanted to take that one step forward and paint a quote or something on them... then I decided to cover the canvases [kinda defeating the purpose of them, but I can always take the fabric off] and paint simple silhouettes on them.

I suck and didn't take pictures during the process, but that's because it's so easy.

NEED: 

• Canvas or shoe box
• Hot glue/gun
• Fabric to cover your canvas or top [$1/each if you get swatches]
• Simple acrylic craft paint
• Paint brushes

DO:

1. Iron out the fabric if necessary and place it on top of the canvas.
2. Glue down the sides, doing about two inches at a time and alternating sides. Make sure you pull it a little so it's nice and flat.
3. If you need to, pencil an outline of what you want to paint on. 
4. Paint.. and then love!

After I hung them up, Nugget and I both decided I should have made bigger ones... but they'll do! And I'm hoping they'll look 100x better as soon as I get some new furniture in this piece.

Also, my walls are not nearly as pink as they appear there, but for some reason my pictures always have a different tint in each place I see them.

So they're not the most artistic things ever.. but they're personalized and fun! I might end up redoing them on different fabric, but these were the only options at the time, and they'll totally work for now, don't ya think?!

love,
elizabethany

Tweet

pinteresting: i finally made a headboard!

My bed was completely shattered during the move [along with 75% of my stuff], so I've been sleeping on a broken, ugly bed. I've always wanted to make a headboard, but with so many possibilities, I didn't know which one to choose!

So, instead, I made one up/combined a couple ideas.

The inspiration for what I decided to do actually came from "wall artwork" which is foam insulation paneling wrapped in fabric. I figured it'd be super easy and simple!

While the entire process was really very easy, fitting a gigantic panel in my car was not. I bought six skinnier panels and placed them on top of each other. They're about 4x1.5 feet each, and $10 for a pack of six. I also got two 6 ft tall, skinny craft boards for about $2.50 each.

Then I got some black fabric that I wish I could describe to you, but I don't. It's got a little texture to it, but not too much.

First step, lay the boards on the fabric, and cut around it, leaving about an inch or so around the edges. [Enough to fold up over the edges of the board.]

My motto has always been "who cares what the back looks like, no one is going to see it," so don't worry about it being perfect. 

Then you're just going to take a staple gun all around the edges, pulling tight enough to get wrinkles out, but don't create them by pulling too tight. It was a bit trickier to master than I thought it would be.

I never figured out how to perfectly do the corners until the end, and I'm still not even sure how I really did it, but here are some up close shots. 

[Pretend like you're wrapping a present, maybe?]

Once they're all wrapped in fabric, break out the craft boards, measure to make sure they're straight/parallel, and nail the foam right to them! [If you want your headboard to be more sturdy, use three. I'm more about being cheap, though.]

This is where my perfect vision lost its perfection. I moved a little to quickly, and didn't make sure I was lining everything up perfectly and really pushing the panels close together so there were no gaps. The imperfections aren't terribly hard to see, but I may try to fix them later down the road.

I have a mirror next to my bed which I wanted to match with the height of the headboard, which happened to be exactly six feet! I simply stuck the headboard behind my bed with the legs on the floor and VOILA! I feel a couple points more official.

I purposely did white nails because of the colors in my room [which the furniture you see is ruining until I paint them], but it would have been neat if I found some cuter, decorative nails.

ALSO... BONUS! Someone pointed out that since it's foam, I can tack some pictures, "good morning" notes, or ANYTHING to it! Neat, right?!

I think I spent about $30 total for the insulation boards, craft boards, and fabric. Not bad!

What do you think? You can be honest! Let me know how you'd do it differently!

love,

elizabethany

Tweet