Another Pinterest project – Another win!

I’ve been reviewing my Pinterest boards lately, in anticipation of our upcoming move (more on that later). I’ve found tons of handy things that I’d long forgotten: painting tips, organization ideas, and of course, ideas & tutorials for craft projects for decoration. While we can’t use most of these pins yet, there were a few things I could get a jump on now!

One of these ideas I found on Pinterest and saved from another pinner.

Unfortunately, this pin links back to a blog or blog post that has since been made private, so I can’t give the mind behind this idea any credit.

It wasn’t too hard to piece together what needed to happen here, though, and I was feeling antsy. Off to Michael’s I went.

Materials:

The hubs and I attended the same alma mater for undergrad and met while singing in their select choir. I got the idea of using our university hymn as the music in the background to make one of these canvases. I asked on Facebook, looking for a copy of the sheet music, tagging a few music major friends to see if anyone had a copy. Within an hour, our collegiate director (professor emeritus now) had arranged to have a copy faxed to me and before the end of the work day, my boss (also a fellow alum) was having a stroll down memory lane. These are the times I love social media – people you haven’t seen in years can remind you that your time together was real, even though distance and life may separate you.

ONU Hymn

Boss’s Facebook post – “Donita, did you have this faxed to the office? … This made my day!”

Confession: I had never used Mod Podge before. I figured it couldn’t be that hard. It definitely has a nuance to it, but it got the job done. Be sure to buy the brayer on your first trip to the craft store (learn from me).

Amateur tip #1: If you have something on copy paper that you want to Mod Podge, and don’t know that they have special sealer for thin paper, I recommend copying your image onto card stock. Totally worth the $0.45 at Staples.

Prep: Make sure your music is large enough that it extends over the edge of the canvas. Then trim the paper to 1/8″ more narrow than your canvas on all sides. (This prevents the paper from sticking straight out at the edges of the canvas, while ensuring you don’t have lots of white space at the edge.)

This is the version cut to exactly 11×14… Trust me – you want it trimmed a little more closely.

Step 1: Apply a thin to medium layer of Mod Podge to the canvas. Carefully lay your cardstock music onto the canvas. Use your brayer to smooth any wrinkles that may appear and press down firmly around all edges. (It’s assumed you know to wait the recommended amount of time between coats of mod podge or paint.)

Amateur tip #2: Find a hardcover book that is slightly smaller than the inside of your framed canvas. Have this handy when you are using your brayer, to support the canvas from underneath. When you apply the mod podge, the canvas will stretch if you push down on it.

Step 2: Mod Podge over top of your music (1-2 medium layers).

Step 3: Choose your phrase and apply the letters to the canvas. I chose “Loyal Forever” because the last line of the University Hymn is “Loyal forever to dear ONU”.

Amateur tip #3: If you need to mark lightly on the canvas, pencil will erase off of mod podge! Who knew?

Step 4: Paint over the letters with your chosen paint color. I used ‘Pure Pumpkin’. The name had only part to do with it. The other part was that our school colors are orange and black. Use as many coats as you think you need, but make sure that you can still see some of the music underneath. I only needed one coat.