Kid's Mother's Day Art Project... Hand Print Canvas

This is the Mother's Day craft my little daycare boy will be giving to his Mom this year.

I thought it turned out pretty darned sweet.  

I saw this cute idea on Pinterest, and I had to give it a try myself.  The picture shown on Pinterest was of canvas art similar to mine, but there were multiples stacked up and in a bunch of different colours in the photo.  Unfortunately, whoever pinned it didn't do it correctly, so it didn't go back to its origin.  I wanted to read up on how theirs was done and to see if it were a print or whatever, but since I couldn't follow the link back, I just had to wing it on my homemade one.

I took a 6x8 canvas and painted two coats of blue acrylic paint onto it, allowing it to dry between and after coats.

Then I literally painted white acrylic paint onto the little boy's hand (to keep the paint thickness fairly even to prevent it from looking too smudgy - I wanted to be able to see the lines and creases in his hand), then helped him place his hand print in the center of the canvas.  

I then added his name and the date with a black Sharpie marker.

Then after his hand print was dry, I added two coats of Mod Podge to seal it well, letting it dry in between coats.

The above photo is how the wet Mod Podge looks when applied, but it dries clear.

Anyways, he will be giving it to his Mom later this week.

I'm sure she'll treasure it.  ♥

I was thinking I might do another, but with his foot print and in a different background colour (perhaps in green), for Father's Day.

We'll see.  ;)

Happy creating!  :)

DIY Photo Canvas

After we got back from our trip to Yuma, AZ, during spring break, I took one of my favourite photos of Cole out in the sand dunes, and made a canvas print with it.

I simply took a piece of white tissue paper, wrapped it around a piece of printer paper, taped the the overlap   of tissue paper to the back side of the printer paper, and simply printed it out using my printer.

Then I took an old 6x8 canvas that I had bought years ago at the dollar store (pack of 2 for $1), and painted a layer of Mod Podge onto the canvas.  Then I centered my tissue print (that I trimmed to size while it was still taped onto the printer paper), and pressed it onto the wet canvas, using my brayer to roll over it, lightly pressing it into the canvas.

I let it dry, then applied a layer of Mod Podge over top.

Once it dried, that was it.  Pretty easy.  And not bad for my first try.  :)

Note:  I think if I were to do it again, which I totally plan on doing, I will look for some type of a spray to seal the tissue layer before applying it to the canvas, because I noticed that when I painted the top layer of Mod Podge, it was picking up the ink a little, making the ink bleed.  So if it were sealed, it wouldn't do that.  I'm also thinking that if I had used a laser printer, it might not have bled either.  But my laser printer needs new ink.  Why is laser printer ink so expensive?  It is like $120 for each colour.  Crazyness!

Happy creating!  :)