DIY Christmas Canvas Art
Two craft posts within a week (see my DIY Burlap Wreath)? Crazy, I know! Know what else is crazy? Christmas is TWO weeks from today, so I really wanted to get this up ASAP in case you need some last minute decor up in your casa.
Now about how I made this, because this is the really cool part. There’s one thing you should know about me: I can’t draw. I know writing isn’t drawing, but I have horrible penmanship all around; my handwriting seriously looks worse than if my 9-month-old daughter scribbled something.
So how in the world did I make this look so gosh darn awesome? Two words: carbon paper.
Make your own DIY Christmas Canvas Art!
I opened Photoshop and set the image size to the actual canvas size that I was working with (22″x30″, I believe), and then picked what fonts I wanted to use (Bombshell Pro and Mossy), and played around with different hues.
From there, I typed out what I wanted to say so it would be the actual size when I printed it out. Which leads me to the next step: I printed it out. Then, I taped the pages down where I wanted them to be on the canvas, placed a piece of carbon paper underneath, and started tracing the letters. Easy. Peasy.
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| this is upside down because I’m left handed and didn’t want to smear it along the way! |
Once the tracing was complete I started filling in the letters. I almost went with acrylic paint or paint pens, but I found metallic Sharpies for half the price, so that’s what I used.
The whole thing set me back $15—at most—and now I have enough carbon paper to last a lifetime and three colors of metallic Sharpies. I’m already dreaming up more projects now that I can “draw” and “write” basically anything I want on canvas. I know this may sound silly, but I’m thrilled with how this looks and I often catch myself just staring at it!
I have to be honest, this is (possibly) half finished. I have plans (and the stuff for it) to add stenciled glitter snowflakes, but I don’t actually know if I’ll get around to adding it this season. That’s kinda how I roll with
crafts; I’ll start them and then sometimes not necessarily finish them. I’m also thinking about adding a layer or two of glitter mod podge to it so the whole thing will have a light shimmer. Luckily, I think this looks pretty good on its own, but snowflakes and glitter could add a certain pizazz.
WOW, I am totally impressed! You sure do make it look easy even for someone who doesn't have an artistic bone in her body, namely me!
Like mother, like daughter 🙂
Love love love! Definitely saving this!
I'm always nervous about doing crafts like these b/c I'm afraid to screw up the canvas. I LOVE the carbon paper idea though, and I'm sure I can pick-up the supplies on one of my 42 trips to Micheal's this week!
This is awesome!!! I wish I had the time to do crafts – and this is so easy – just no time! Maybe some day!!!! 🙂 Great job, Jess!
That is so fun, we might need to do a craft exchange next year!
This is pretty! got to do this!
I love it! Great job and thanks for sharing! I think it looks awesome how it is, but you could also add the snowflakes – glitter is always good 🙂
Umm so I love that canvas! I love it 100x more knowing that it's totally doable. You did a great job!
Love this! And I think it's great in its simplicity. I think that the phrase Joy to the World should be a big statement and leaving it alone like this makes it more bold. Carbon paper, who woulda thought?!
What a lovely DIY! So simple but so beautiful.
This turned out so good!
I love this! It's gorgeous!!
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Jessica, I just found this on Pinterest — what a great idea! I've never thought of using carbon paper like this before, so this is a valuable tip. Thanks so much for sharing!
Hi there,
I just purchased the Bombshell Font by Emily Line, and what I loved about it was the swashes and no lift spaces. I have Word 2008, and I was having a lot of trouble figuring out how to apply those. I figured out how to do the swashes (by checking the "Enable all ligatures in document") and then doing ==love++ to make the swashes. However, I can not figure out how to connect the words (no lift spaces) to make it all run together. I have found no tutorials or information on anything about this, and I have no way of contacting Emily Line because it doesn't list an email address or anything. I came across your blog just by googling bombshell font help and saw you had made a post about this font, and I was just wondering if you could help me figure out how to connect the words (if there's a trick like the == and ++). Thank you so much!!
-Amanda
Where did you find the carbon paper? I can't find it anywhere!
Could one do this without photoshop? It looks amazing!