Cut Canvas

Update: I have received a lot of questions about where I found the stencils so I have decided to share.  The chevron type and x type shaped one is here and here, and the diamond/flower shaped one is from here.

While perusing around Pinterest one day I came across this picture of layered cut canvas.  I thought to myself "That is so awesome!  I have never thought to cut a canvas before...I'm gonna have to try it."  And try it I did.  For this little projet I used the economy pack of 11x14 $5.99 canvases.

First I went online to search around for wall stencils to find some patterns I liked.  Since I dont have a printer I put a piece of copy paper over my screen and gently traced the outline of the stencil with a pencil.  Luckily my screen tilts pretty far back so it wasn't that bad to trace the patterns thought the screen puts off a lot of heat!  My paper wasn't large enough (nor were the patterns) to completely take up the canvas so I had to line up the pattern lower on the page to completely fill it in.  You know since my piece of paper was an 8.5 x 11 and the canvas opening was roughly the same size just slightly longer around 12-12.5 inches.

After I got the pattern traced I went over it with a sharpie.

I taped the pattern face down on the front side of the canvas.

Now you can't see the pattern through the canvas unless you hold it up to the light so I sat back in my chair and propped the canvas in my lap while facing a window and gently traced the pattern onto the back side of the canvas with a pencil.  I had to move my stencil down on the canvas and line up the pattern to continue it to the bottom. 

Pattern traced onto the back of canvas in pencil...check!

Now it came to cutting out the pattern, only I forgot to take pictures with the first pattern since I was so eager to see the outcome.  I laid the canvas on our cutting board and got to  cutting with my Exacto knife.  I picked out patterns with mostly straight lines since I didn't know how well cutting in a circular pattern would go.  But you can see this one has a curve to one part of the pattern which wasn't difficult at all.  By the end of cutting my 3rd canvas my finger started hurting from squeezing the knife so hard.  The canvas wasn't very difficult to cut through but I am sure if you bought a higher quality canvas than the economy pack it would be.

Here are all 3 patterns finished.  I'm not sure on which arrangement I like the best, I keep moving them around.  I have to say my favorite pattern is the one on the right, which the stencil was actually flipped but the pattern wasn't going to work well with the vertical orientation of the canvas.  To hang them I used the smallest and longest nails we have on hand.   You could probably even use a push pin.

 

 Yep they went on the big blank wall in Jimmy's bathroom.  It was a nice little surprise after I hung them up and later walked by to see something hanging on the wall instead of nothing.

Oh and you may notice that we have new rugs since Berkley likes to waller on things and tore up my ghetto towel rugs.  Boring looking rugs but Jimmy loves them and I will just leave the fancy decorations to the rest of the room.  We need a new shower curtain but I may just paint some stripes or something on the current one (which is just made out of a sheet).

 

 I am also not sure if I like the stark white but they do go with the baseboards and door and toilet, etc.  I have painted the frame part white so it blends in with the canvas, I just never retook the picture :O)

Jimmy still hasn't hung up the mirror that is sitting on the counter, but he doesn't want to drill a big hole in the wall since the mirror weighs like 5 lbs! I wonder if there are any heavy duty 3M strips that will hold it.

 

And while we are in the bathroom the last few things I plan to do in here are...
~Replace or do something with the shower curtian like I said before.
~Replace the faucet with and oil rubbed bronze one.
~Possibly spray paint the hollywood ligting strip with oil rubbed bronze.
~Paint the ceiling so it is water resistant.  With a low ceiling this room gets moist!