I've been busy!

LOTS of refashioning, crafting, spray-painting, and picture hanging!
I've got more pictures to show, but to start with, here's a tutorial.

You know those lovely canvas/wood pictures with the witty phrases, Parisian cities, and/or other assorted wording on them?

I decided to save money and make my own. Plus, I got to customize it!

Materials needed:
Canvas (any size)
Black acrylic paint
Paint brush
computer
carbon paper
colored pen
PATIENCE!

Step One:
Make a design for your canvas using lots of different fonts. I chose to do cities in the world: ones we've been to and ones we'd like to visit. Here's my mock-up:

Step 2: Print out the words the exact size you want them on the canvas. Using photoshop is a HUGE help because you can get the proportions right.

Step 3: Tape carbon paper beneath the printout. Make sure every layer is securely taped! You don't want the print out to move on you. It will make life very hard.

Step 4: Using moderate pressure, trace around the letters using a colored pen so you can see where you've traced. Make sure you don't forget to trace the inside of letters too! (I kept forgetting the inside of the letter a).

You can see how it looks traced.

















Step 5: Double check you have everything traced before you remove the paper. Here's the canvas before I started painting.

Step 6: using a SMALL paint brush, fill in around the traced letters with black paint. This is where the patience part comes in. A lot more detail than I first thought.













The finished product!!

All I have to do now is hang it on the wall! When that is accomplished, I'll post pics.












And cuz I know you'll ask, the cities that either myself or Bret have been to are London, Berlin, Oxford, Avebury, and Dresden.