Lesson Learned: Read the Directions!

On Sunday's recap, you saw my Pinterest-inspired project. Yesterday I explained the reason I made it.

Today I bring you a little piece called Why it is imperative to actually read the directions before doing a project. Please enjoy.

1. This was my inspiration piece as found on Pinterest.

Source: virginiaandcharlie.blogspot.com via Rebekah on Pinterest

2. The note on the pin when I pinned it said, Elmer's Glue on canvas. Then paint the whole thing one color. So....I went to Hobby Lobby and bought a canvas and a bottle of Elmer's glue (because it's true...I don't own a bottle of glue). I had leftover spray paint from the snowman wreath project earlier this year, so I pulled that out of the closet. Given that I had a gift card to Hobby Lobby, I spent a grand total of $0.00 on this project.
3. The inspiration piece has the nice tiny lines, but I wanted a chunkier look to mine, so I found a font I liked and printed it out in something like size 250, which took several sheets of paper...4. Then I had to figure out how to get the letters onto the canvas. So...I put the paper on the canvas to see about where to center the letters... 5. And then I folded the paper over the canvas to get a "line" on my paper so I would make sure I had all the letters lined up as evenly as possible. 6. Then I turned the paper over and scribbled over the letters with a pencil (fun for when you're feeling aggravated).... 7. Then I turned the paper BACK over, arranged it where I wanted it, and traced the letters with the pencil... 8. Tracing over the paper with the lead scribbling on the back left the outline on the canvas. 9. It's hard to see on here...but I got the entire word on the canvas... 10. Then I picked up my bottle of glue and got to work. Problem...it didn't make a very fine line...so I filled in the letters fully. Decided I liked it. Put it on the buffet to dry (aka kept it away from curious whiskers of four legged inhabitants of this house)... 11. Checked on it later...the glue was totally spreading. Started to panic and then decided not to. (Too much energy expended.) Decided to look at it as impressionistic art. Went to bed. 12. Checked on it the next morning...the glue had entirely disappeared INTO the canvas. 13. It was raised on the back side. Woops. 14. Went back to the pin, clicked over to the original source blog link and discovered the look was actually made with PUFFY PAINT, not glue. Went back to Hobby Lobby and (after asking for directions) found the puffy paint. 15. Redid the outline in puffy paint. Also learned, while reading, that the original artist painted her design onto wax paper, peeled it off and glued it on the canvas...that would have helped for when I messed up! Doing this directly on the canvas meant I was forced to work with whatever I had.

NEVERTHELESS... (get it?? nevertheless??) I loved this project and would make another canvas (using the easier method to start with) for my house! Bottom line - don't make a project based off the picture alone. Read the directions!