A little fall crafting...

..even though technically it was crafted in the summertime when I was home from work, with no routine & nothing pressing to do. Unlike now...sigh.

I kept seeing subway art all over the internet & thought why can't I make fall inspired subway art to compliment my fall mantel?

With that idea, I got to work. Now don't look at this as any great technical tutorial. That is so not my bag. I am no pro here, I just did what I did & came out with a fairly decent project, following this excellent tutorial at lilblueboo.

I know the pic is horrible, but I bought a canvas at Michaels, some clear adhesive contact paper & spray adhesive at Target & spray paint from Lowes.



I typed words into the computer, played around with different fonts & sizes, and printed them out. (I am so not computer savvy.)

I sent my hubby to have a copy made of my printout in an 18 X 24 size. (the same size as my canvas.)

I then cut up each word, coated it with spray adhesive & stuck it to the contact paper.

Then came the fun part. Cutting out each & every letter.

It took ages laying them out on the canvas and once I had it to my liking, I peeled the contact paper backing & stuck the letters to the canvas. Now some people have used a ruler to guide them, but not me, I'm a rebel & I just eyeballed it.



Of course, insert trouble here. Nothing ever goes completely right for me. My contact paper was not sticking quite as well as it should have. Not even when using a brayer.

I then had to take each individual letter off, spray it with spray adhesive & stick it back to the canvas. (Heaven help me, I wanted to scream!)

Once that was done, I then made hubby hit it with the brown spray paint. Let it dry completely & then hit it again.



Oh, and then I took a paint brush with white paint on it & splattered it all over the canvas trying to give it a worn look.

Then I panicked.

I got scared that I just ruined the whole thing, so I had hubby spray painted over it. You know what? I love how that turned out. It kind of made the canvas imperfect & that's a-ok with me.

After letting it dry a good long time, I finally got to unpeel the lettering & this is what I had:



Pretty nifty, huh?

Like I said, it's not perfect, but I love how it turned out anyway. I'll have to get some pics of it to show you how it looks with my mantel decor. (too dark & gloomy to take pics today.)

Are you thinking of making anything for fall this year? Do tell...let's chat.