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I have seen others make something similar to these online and have always wanted to try my hand at them. I found the 12x12 inch pre-stretched canvas' at Big Lots. The paper that I used is My Minds Eye. The lines that the paper is from is "Plie", "Pirouette", "Ballet", and "Chassé". When I found paper that I liked to match my craft/scrap room, I bought a few embellishments that matched all of the paper to decorate them with.
I started my painting the canvas with acrylic paints. I used colors that coordinated with the paper - lt. pink, lt. green and a lt. blue. The canvas was a little smaller than a true 12x12 so the paper didn't fit exactly. I had to trim down the scalloped paper that I loved so much. I decided to cut the scallop off 3 of the 4 sides. Then it fit well with a small portion on the painted canvas showing for a border. Once I got everything laid out on each canvas the way I wanted them to look in the end, I inked all of the edges even the edge of the canvas. I used a dark brown color lightly on the edges.
Now for the messy part! MODGE PODGE! I love this stuff! I got a medium sized sponge brush all gooped up with MP (modge podge)and went to town. I coated the top canvas really well and laid the patterned paper on top. With the brush modge podge the top of the paper. Spread it evenly over top and sealing the paper to the canvas. Every time I added something new to the page I put MP on the bottom of the piece set it on the canvas and then sealed it over top again with the MP.
To make the canvas edges shiny like the top of the canvas at the end, I MP'ed them too.
Let them dry 24 hours and then you can hang them! My idea behind leaving mats for pictures was that I want to change the pictures every so often. I didn't want to MP any to the canvas' because then they would get outdated because my kids won't stop growing and changing. I can use double stick tape and replace them!
Hope you enjoyed this project!
