Bored Easily: Hot Glue and Spraypaint

So I've been seeing posts around the internet (and too many to count on Pinterest) about decorating mason jars with hot glue and then spray painting over the whole thing. While I really had no use for mason jars right now, the idea caught my attention. While digging through my closet last week for something completely unrelated, I dug up a pack of canvases that I had no idea I possessed. :) Suddenly the two things clicked--using the mason jar idea on the canvas! Here's how it went.

To create my masterpiece I used:

flat art canvas (bought in 3-packs at Michael's)

tracing paper

charcoal pencil

painters tape

template (I may be crafty, but artistic I am not)

glue gun

spray paint

The first thing to do was to transfer my design to the canvas. If you have artistic handwriting, you could do this freehand, but my handwriting is chicken scratch so I just found a font that I liked. There may be an easier way to do the transfer but this is how I did it.

I first traced the outline of the letters. I found it is easier to fill in the letters with the glue than to trace over thin lines.

From here, you can see the problem. If I transfer the image like this it will be backwards. To solve this problem, I turned the tracing paper over and traced went over the lines from the back.

Remember, this is an outline, so your lines don't have to be perfect.

From here, I taped the paper to the canvas with the word reading the right way (remember, there is writing on both sides.

This is the reason that I used a charcoal pencil. When you apply a little pressure and rub over the words, the charcoal marks easily transfer to the canvas. I like to use a normal pencil for this step. It lets me know when I've covered the entire thing (wouldn't want to miss a letter!) and I find that the tip of a pencil exerts the perfect amount of pressure for transferring the image.

Isn't it pretty!

Now it seems like the rest would be easy. Add glue, let dry, paint, hang...but beware!! Hot glue can be unpredictable, especially when your glue gun is probably as old as you are. I know glue guns are now made with a trigger, which I guess would make it easier to apply the glue accurately, but my gun makes you press the glue down with your thumb and that made the whole process tricky.

This is my glue gun. Notice the lack of trigger.

Here is my first attempt. I'm glad these canvases are relatively inexpensive!!

Once you have your canvas decorated to your liking, let it dry completely. It is actually a good idea to let it dry between each letter. It is easy to catch the still sticky glue with your hand or the glue gun and smear it :(

Look what I found in the laundry room!!!! The same paint I used to repaint some things when I redecorated my room

Now it's time to paint. Make sure you use plenty of newspaper or a drop cloth to cover your work surface and work outside or in a well ventilated area. I did my painting in the garage with the door open because it was a little windy when I was working.