Good night Love

I recently felt inspired to give my guestroom / office a mini makeover. One of the first projects I tackled was the artwork. I created this canvas night light that I “LOVE”.. get it?! It’s one of my fave craft projects, because it looks great during the day and at night. It was incredibly easy and only took about an hour and a half from start to finish. I wish I could take credit for this idea, but of course I found it on Pinterest. Follow the original tutorial here  How to: Glittering Night Light.

STEP ONE:
First buy your canvas any size, mine was 24″ x 36″. Draw your design in pencil, I used the infamous “LOVE” shape for my design. You can free hand your design or print out a pre made shape and trace it onto the canvas. You could easily do a simple flower, animal silhoutte, etc.

STEP TWO:

Fill in your pre traced design with paint. This took about 2 coats of acrylic paint. I recommend letting each coat of paint dry for about 30 minutes, otherwise it gets goopy (do you like my very formal terminology). And you want it to be a smooth even coat.

STEP THREE:

Poke a hole in the canvas using a phillips head screwdriver. You can eyeball the placement of the holes, Or I drew them on about every half an inch with a pencil first. If you dont want to use a screwdriver, you can use an aull, but I didn’t have one so the screwdriver was the next best thing. I used a small pencil at first and gently pressed against the front of the canvas to make a small hole and then went back using the screwdriver  on the back side to create the larger holes. The screwdriver makes the perfect size for your christmas light bulbs to fit through. Now you have to make sure the light’s dont fall out. I used a small dab of hot glue on the back of the canvas on the outer rim of each hole, then lightly pressed the christmas bulb in place. Repeat this step for each hole. (Note: do this with the christmas lights off.. the picture is showing the placement only.. but you knew that already didn’t ya!)

NEXT: Plug in your lights and enjoy! Easy right?! I just hid the extra lights behind the dresser, but you could easily tuck them all into the back of the canvas leaving just enough cord to plug in. Hope you enjoyed my tutorial and I didn’t confuse you too much 🙂

Handy Dandy Bag O’ Buttons

So this past weekend was my cousins baby shower, and I wanted to give a gift that was personalized and unique. After hours pinning on Pinterest, I was inspired to create a button covered canvas with the baby’s first initial. Since it was for a little boy’s room I kept the color scheme pretty neutral but of course had to throw the ribbon hanger on there too 🙂

Total Project Time is about an hour and a half.

Supplies You’ll Need:

-scissors   -hot glue gun   -needle and thread   -blank canvas (any size)

-ribbon    -fabric (to cover the canvas)    -bag O’ buttons

Step 1

Once you have all your supplies the first step is to cover your canvas in your chosen fabric, I used burlap. Measure the size of the canvas (mine was 8in x 10in).  Add about half an inch all the way around to cover the sides of the canvas. NOTE: Ive also done this project using scrapbook paper instead of fabric and it worked just as good.

Pull the fabric tight around all edges and staple into place (you could hot glue the fabric if you don’t want to staple it).

Step 2

Cut out your letter to size using scrap paper. You could use a stencil but I just free handed mine. Next lay it on top of the canvas where you want the design to be and trace around your letter. I used a thin marker, you want the line to be visible so you know where to sew your buttons. This line will be covered up when your all finished.

Step 3

Once you have the shape of your letter traced onto the canvas you can start sewing your buttons in to place. This entire project required about 50 buttons. I chose to use dark brown buttons but you could use any color or multiple colors. I found it to be easier to start from the top and work your way down. It’s better to start with the larger buttons and then use the smaller ones to fill in the gaps. You could also hot glue the buttons instead of sew them, but I think sewing them is a little more sturdy. This part is the longest, it takes about 45 minutes to sew all the buttons into place.

Step 4

Once you have all your buttons sewn on the final step is to hot glue a ribbon to the back to hang the canvas. Lastly (this step is optional) I glued ribbon around the entire canvas edge and topped it off with more buttons. This adds just the finishing touch but you could easily leave it off.

And VOILA! Easy Right?! This makes such a great gift and is sure to add that extra cuteness to any room .