I've had the canvas for a few years now, and it had gotten a little dirty through the three moves it's seen, so I decided to paint over it.  

I had quite a bit of oil paint left over from an art class I took in college, but it's been so long since I used it (sad, I know) that I couldn't even get my gesso open!  I ended up just directly painting on the canvas without priming it first.  

The paint was old, and dried quickly and in a slightly crumbly manner, so I swirled it with my palette knife to give it a little texture and avoid the canvas looking completely gross.

So here's how I went about this.

I decided what I wanted to put on the canvas.  I picked a lyric from our wedding recessional song, "As Lovers Go" by Dashboard Confessional.

I picked a font I liked, and printed out the lyrics I was going to use.  Virginia puts them under waxed paper, but we had none, so I slid it into a gallon-sized Ziploc bag.  It worked out well.


I went over the letters as carefully as I could with the puffy paint, which is saying something.  I'm not known for steady hands.

What they looked like on the bag with the paper removed

So they didn't look too bad, right?  I let them dry awhile.

Well, I started putting them on the canvas.  I didn't even need to use adhesive -- they were sticking on their own (to be fair, I only let them dry an hour or so, because they had hardened and I'm impatient).



The letters ended up being smaller than I anticipated, but I was figured it was okay.  But then I ripped one taking it off (this is where I began wondering if waxed paper and patience would have been more in my favor).  At this point, I was like, well, why not just use my own handwriting?  It's bigger.

So I did.

This is how it turned out.


Am I satisfied with how it turned out?  No.

Will I redo it in the future?  Yes, but I'll make changes.  I'll either use a thicker font (and certainly make it a larger size) or use wooden letters.  This is okay for now, but it's by no means the best I can do.  I just felt like I should be honest with you guys -- not everything turns out the way you want it to, and that's okay.  Practice makes perfect :)

And don't forget to check out what our hosts did as well -- check out Sherry's, Katie's, Kate's, and Michelle's.

Don't forget to vote for us on the fence!