Canvas craft attempt

About a year ago my sister told me about taking a poster and decopodging it to a canvas to make it look like it was an original canvas art. I love canvas art and have been dying to try to make my own since last summer. As always school gets in the way and I never seem to have the time to do anything, especially not crafts. Well seeing as I had some free time on my this last weekend I thought I would give it a try! I had a paper bag from a bakery in San Francisco that I picked up last summer when I decided I was going to try this whole canvas art thing, so I figured I would try it with that and see how it went!

It had been sitting my car for a while so one side of the bag was faded, luckily the other side wasn't! I took the bag and cut it in half so that I would have enough to cover the entire canvas. I cut it with an exacto knife and then ran it horizontally along the egdes to give it a more worn appearance.

I used a a 14" x 18" art canvas that I picked up at Ben Franklins. They are usually really expensive, but I happened to stop in when they had a sale which is what prompted my decision to finally make one! The bag has red in it, so I decided I wanted to paint the canvas red, one so the sides of the canvas would bring out the red in the bag and two so that if anything bled through it would match. I used red acrylic paint that matches the red on the bag. If you aren't worrying about having any colors show through, etc. you can do this without painting the canvas. I blow dried the canvas with a diffuser so it would be really even and then I sanded it down a little bit. I sanded it so that it wasn't really thick and so it gave it a little bit of texture.

I didn't have decopodge, so I used modgepodge. Either will work :) I had both Matte and Gloss so I used the Matte for the back of the bag. I covered the entire bag and then layed it down on the canvas. I smoothed it out with my hands to make sure it stuck and that there weren't huge bumps throughout the bag. To cover the front I used the Gloss, but I watered it down some so it wouldn't be as thick. Then I brushed it on using criss cross strokes to create that canvas feel. The bag naturally popped up in some places, but I smoothed most of those areas out and left some to give it a vintage feel. Then I blow dried it again with the diffuser. The decopodge goes on white, but don't worry if you are using color it dries clear! I let it dry all of the way and then sanded it out just a little bit to add a little bit more texture.

I am really excited about how well it turned out!! I can't wait to put it up in my kitchen in August!