{Baby Boy Canvas}

I just finished this canvas for a super sweet little man about to be born!  Little Lincoln won't arrive for a few more weeks but I am so excited to give the parents this canvas to match their pirate bedding from Babies R us called Pirate Party.  I matched the colors and hopefully this will hang in their nursery!

I started by taping off lines with painters tape on my 18x24 canvas.  I didn't even measure here.  I kinda wanted the "unperfect" look that different sized lines would create.  Crazy enough though the lines weren't that far off in sizing so my goal wasn't truly achieved.

Pull off that tap after 3 coats of each color (that red was horrible by the way because it streaks on a canvas)

I did the edges so that when you see it from the side it looks nice

These are the colors that I used.  Notice that I have a combo of brands.  It was whatever I had on hand!

My final project!  I have to admit that this canvas took FOREVER to paint.  Not because it was hard, but because I didn't "think" about painting over stripes.  I attempted to first paint the name in brown.  Well, that didn't show up so then I went with black.  Well, you couldn't read the freakin font then.  My husband said that he didn't like the font anyways (I disagree although it is hard to read but love his heart he was trying to help).  So then I ran to the craft store and bought a paint pen and went around the letters like 5 times to get the white to show up.  

**So my final comment on this canvas is that it might look cute, but if you paint stripes go ahead and do vinyl over top, not paint.  Otherwise you will be in the same place I was--it won't show up over the colors.  Or better yet, don't put a dark color like navy right in the middle of the canvas.  Put it at the bottom so black or brown paint will show up!**

{Navy Canvas}

My friend said that she had ordered the Pottery Barn Kids Bedding in Harper and I had already told her I would do a canvas for the room.  I wanted Clean lines since this bedding is basically just white with navy lines~nothing Cute or Fun~it is very pretty though.  Makes me want to redo my son's room in Navy!

Here is the canvas I used--pretty big!  Love this size and how cheap!  I think it was like $10 for 2 canvases!

Wondering why in the world I used 2 different types of navy paint?  Oh that would be because I had a bottle of navy then ran out to the craft store and thought I should have another as backup.  Got home and realized that I didn't have the same brand~and the navy colors were not alike in any way (shocking how off they were from each other).  Anyways, I just mixed them together and now I have a ton of Navy Blue paint in a baby food jar stored away.

The most challenging thing about this bad boy was figuring out the measuring (I don't pride myself in being good with sizes and straight lines).  You can see the ruler in the background.  I had great intentions of doing all this stuff with spacing~but in the end I ended up using painters tape.  I just laid it down and then did second stripe 2 1/2 inches apart.

Next I simply used my Cricut machine and cut out a 11x11 vinyl inch letter "S" in American Typewriter font.  It is my go-to font for things like this that you don't want baby or so swirly.  Now getting this centered wasn't easy and I'm pretty sure it really isn't centered, but you can only move something so many times till you go crazy.  I consider this my stencil in reverse style

Let's paint!  Normally I would spray paint this~which I cursed myself for not doing at the time.  Not that this is challenging in any way, but spray paint takes like 2 minutes and paint takes like 10.  Big deal right?

Coat of paint #2Watch out here because this is when that tape and vinyl letter start arching up off the canvas and you have to lightly press it back down to stick.

Pull off the tape and vinyl and {FABULOUS} appears!  

Look at my edges though?  I am still unhappy that for some reason I decided to paint the sides after I told myself not to!  I got to singing while painting and totally forgot.  Now my lines are all jacked up.

See?  Boo on this.  So, I took my foam brush and dipped away in the paint to straighten the line as best as I could.

Finished Product.  I am happy.  Now I have to wrap it and give it to the mother-to-be at her shower next month.