And so it begins....

Initially I planned on writing some sort of introductory post. You know, something to let you know why I chose to start a blog, and what to expect from me. But, rather than bore you with all of that nonsense, I figure I'll leave you this evening with a "how to" on one of my favorite (so far) projects. In December my husband and I purchased a house, and being our first real home (we don't count the condo because it was terrible!) I figured that I should do the wifely thing and decorate. Mind you, I am NOT generally a girly person. I can't match my clothing to save my life. I know more about fixing cars than I do about applying makeup. But, budget wedding planning brought out the craftiness in me so I decided to try my hand at a split canvas wall display using the lyrics to our first dance song, "Amazed" by Lonestar (It was involved in our proposal. Maybe someday I'll embarrass my husband by posting the story.). 

Sadly, because of the terrible lighting in our living room, this is the best picture I could get.

I am done boring you with the details and leave you with my first "how to." I hope it is helpful!


What you need: 

Canvases - Preferably the wrapped ones rather than the flat. More expensive but they look better. I bought a pack of 10- 8"x10" canvases at Michael's, although I wanted to use 8"x8". The 8"x10" just ended up being cheaper because the pack was on sale for $14.95 rather than spending almost 3 times that for the 8x8 canvases. I ended up using 9 for my display but you can tweak that however you want. 

Modge Podge - I used the glossy kind, although the matte might look kind of nice as well...

Paint and paint brushes (at least2) - I used acrylic and it covered and stays on really well. You paint the edge of the canvas, or I guess you CAN paint it if you'd like. I used black, mainly because it's a very common color in my living room but it would look awesome with brighter colors too.

Card stock - Any color you want really. I used white because I'm boring like that but any (probably lighter) color will do.

Computer stuff - A computer, printer, ink, a photo editing program of some sort.

Um.... I think that's it. We'll find out. 

Step by Step:

I used photo shop to create at 30"x24" project because I was using my 8x10" canvases sides ways. So a 3 by 3 display would be 30 inches on top and 24 on the sides. Then I created a text box that covered the entire project. I found the lyrics online and double checked them for accuracy, then copy/pasted them into the text box. Next came the annoying part of figuring out what fonts I wanted to use. I ended up with 4 that I liked together (a scripty one, a block letter one, a hand writing style one and... something else) and alternated them line by line. I tried to make it so that the last line of the chorus was always the same font. It looked prettier that way. I also added a bit of extra spacing in between the letters to make the cropping easier. Then I just adjusted the font size until it filled the entire canvas.

Once all of the writing was in place I had to figure out how to breat my 30x24" into 9 8x10" projects. I'm somewhat Photoshop illiterate so I did this using my Microsoft photo editing program, the hard way. I used the ruler tool to determine where 8x10" was and then cropped the full image at that point. Then I saved it as it's own file. Then I figured out 16"x10, cropped it. Saved it. Etc. You get the point (if not, ask me!). I'm sure there is a MUCH easier way to do this, but I'm terrible, so yeah.

For some reason this auto-rotates when I insert it into the blog. So... lame. I hate computers.

Once everything was cropped and pretty. I printed it out on standard size cardstock, then cut it down to size. I found that using box cutter worked better than scissors. The easier thing I found was to use one of the canvases and trace to give you a cutting edge.

Then I (although maybe I should have done this first) painted the edges of all the of canvases I was going to use black. You don't really have to be careful because the front will be covered. I do recommend painting a 1/2 inch or so onto the front which will hide any cutting discrepancies. I ended up doing 2 coats of paint.

Once everything is dry you apply a layer of Modge Podge to the back of the card stock. For me, applying it to the back of the cardstock rather than directly to the canvas dried with less bubbles. It will NEVER be perfect. Mine aren't. I ripped the old cardstock off and redid it SO MANY TIMES and it was never without some bubbles. But once you get everything together you don't really notice.

After the layer between the canvas and cardstock dries then you brush on a layer of Modge Podge on the surface of the card stock. It let that dry and then did a second coat, but this is totally optional.

Once everything this dry, then display! Ta da!!! 

This is the final project. I ordered the wrapped canvas on either side of the display from EasyCanvasPrints.com (I highly recommend them.). They are 18"x24" and the quality was absolutely AMAZING. I had the sides colored black to match my small lyric canvases.

So there ya go! I promise it's not nearly as hard as it sounds. The most time consuming part (other than waiting for things to dry) was creating the lyric templates and that was mainly because I had no idea what I was doing. All in all the entire project took me maybe 3 hours, spread out over 2 nights. I wish you all good luck, and hopefully I'll be more diligent with this blog and return soon!

  I'll come up with a creative sign off later.

*~Miss D~*