“Things that Go” Wall Art

My husband doesn’t see the need to decorate bathrooms.

I respectfully disagree.

I wanted to do something for the blank white wall in my boys’ bathroom. I had these 8x10” canvases that I had purchased in December with the intention of making Christmas presents for relatives featuring the boys’ handprints. That project failed miserably.

So I took the materials I had purchased for it and created these simple vehicle silhouettes.

First, I painted over the handprint smudges with navy paint. It took lots of coats. I apparently had a cup of tea, too.

Oh yeah, and this project was almost a fail. I found out the hard way that you can’t use freezer paper to stencil on painted canvas. So I had to re-paint the canvas to cover up the failed freezer paper stencil attempt.

So now that my canvases were carefully coated with about 15 coats of navy paint, I bought a roll of clear contact paper and cut my stencils out of that.

And by the way, it killed me to have to buy something…I’m usually able to come up with materials I have or someone shares with me. So I spent $7 on contact paper, making this an un-frugal craft. But I’ll figure out some other uses for this contact paper.

Anyway, I cut the stencil on my self-healing mat. I had printed the pictures off of the internet. I taped everything down so there was no shifting.

Anyway, after cutting the stencil, I carefully took the contact paper and applied it to the canvas. Then I dabbed paint all over it using a foam brush.

I couldn't wait to see how my canvases looked, so I removed the outer portion of the stencil first, before it was dry. I peeled off the little pieces later after it was [mostly] dry.

I hung them in the bathroom using adhesive strips.

Why not nails? It just seemed like overkill since they are so lightweight.

Also, it was naptime. Why ruin things by using a hammer?

Lesson learned: You cannot use freezer papers stencils on top of paint. One more time: Freezer paper will not adhere to painted canvas.