State Canvas Tutorial

Finally, I get to show you all something I’ve been working on for a little while.  Yes, it took me a little while because I’m a perfectionist and because it was with paint I had to be patient.  I’ve been wanting to make these since forever for my house and just a few of those on my list.  I’m all about my home state California and anything I get or I can make it just keeps me that much closer to home as the Army moves us from time to time.  This tutorial will be showing you a canvas I did of Florida because my daughter’s Godmother and my bestie is from Florida.  I’ll be making a couple of California ones for my Mom and I at a later time.  Well lets get started.
Materials Needed:
-Painter’s Tape (I used blue painters tape because I didn’t have Frog Tape on me at the time…but Frog Tape would have worked much better with my lines.)
-Con-Tact Paper (found in the kitchen isle at Wal-Mart.)
-Silhouette SD or Cameo or if you don’t have either one make sure you have an X-Acto Knife
-3 colors of Acrylic Paint (I used White, Laguna (which is a beautiful green color), and Pumpkin Orange.  I thought those were perfect Florida colors.)
-Painter’s Pyramids (they are not absolutely necessary but it makes it much easier when painting the sides of your canvas)
-Foam Brush and a painter’s brush (for touch ups)
-Canvas (Mine is an 8x10 from Hobby Lobby)

1.  I first started off by measuring out my spacing between my stripes.  My stripes are 2inches.  After I made all my hash marks I taped my lines off.  I also, had cut out the state of Florida on contact paper with my Silhouette SD.  I laid down the state on my canvas.  Make sure you don’t throw away the other part of the cutout because you will need that later on.

2.  At this point I painted my Laguna paint on for my main stripes.  Once that is done drying, you’ll need to get only one strip of tape for each of your other stripes.  So for me I needed 4 other strips of tape and then I painted on my white.  If you choose to do a scheme with white you don’t necessarily have to paint it white.  I just wanted a strong white and the canvas wasn’t as white as I’d like it to have been.

3.  Here I took the other part of the cutout and laid it out.  Remember I told you to keep all the pieces of the cutout?  You see that little shape that’s an odd O?  I put that on there because that’s part of the detail of Florida and you can’t leave that out, can you?  So I began using my Pumpkin Orange and painted the state.  I had to do several layers of paint to get the color I wanted.  (Side note:  I apologize for not having a better picture of the colors.  In the picture it looks like I used a blue color instead of my Laguna…I didn’t.  My camera just didn’t want to capture the color.  Probably would have came out better if I took a picture outside.)

4.  Let me apologize for a second time because I didn’t show you a picture of the last step which was the Florida writing (The font I used for Florida is called UpDock you can find it here).  For that all you’ll need to do is do another cutout and this time you don’t need to save everything except of the spaces inside of the letters.  For instance the F, the L, the O, the D, the A.  Paint that with your other color that you chose.
But that is what you’ll have in the end.  Mine is not flawless but I think some of the imperfections make it perfect.  I really hope you all enjoy this.  I think it gives your room a little pizazz if you just have plain white walls and choose not to paint your walls.  We are renting our home, because we definitely aren’t ready to buy since the Army will move us many more times before we retire.  Creating your own décor is much more fun anyways

Have a great weekend!

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