my first diy canvas painting | happy mother's day, mom!

I tried my hand at some canvas painting this week. It turned out...okay. It sort of looks like a Kindergartner did it, but I like that it's imperfect!

Plus, it was for my mom. Obviously she loves it just because I made it for her. Just like when I used to pick her "flowers" (dandelions) and she'd stick em in a mason jar and proudly display them on her window sill.

She's a good mom.

With 6 of us living in one house, my mother spends about half her week doing laundry. Like, that is not an exaggeration at all. And she loves that it is now warm enough for her to hang clothes on the line. I love this too -- the laundry just has a special smell to it when it is hung to dry outside, don't you think?

So when I saw this (on Pinterest, of course) I derived a little inspiration to make my mom this sign for her laundry room. The link will take you to a free printable of the quote if you prefer to go that route with this project; it could be modgepodged to a canvas easily. Not I. Have to do things the complicated, loving way, dontchaknow.

Materials used:

Artist's Loft Canvas (white)
Krylon Interior/Exterior Paint (Blue Ocean Breeze)
Martha Stewart Crafts Multi-Surface Satin Acrylic Paint (Wedding Cake, Habanero, Green Curry)
Martha Stewart Crafts brushes (I couldn't find a link to the exact brushes, but here's a variety of them)
Pencil
Push pins

The process for this was fairly simple -- I used the push pins to hold the canvas off of the cardboard when I was spray painting to prevent it from sticking to the ground, but that didn't really matter as I chose to leave the edges white anyway. I let that dry for a day, and then I traced out my words with a pencil before I painted. What's really sad is that I had to practice my cursive quite a bit before this project -- I NEVER use cursive anymore! I would use it if it looked more elegant, but mine is so sloppy. After that, I just painted the words and WAHLAH, here's the finished product:

I chose those colors because they're mom's favorites. I think it's a cheerful little sign!

Other than that, I would just like to say a few words about my mother. I've never met someone so beautiful. I wonder if everyone feels this way about their own mothers? I literally believe she is the most gorgeous person on the face of this earth. She's reading this right now shaking her head, but it's true. I wish I could come up with more words to describe how amazing my mom is. I feel like Laura in that episode of Little House on the Prairie where she had to write an essay for school and it could be any topic she wanted. She chose to write about her Ma, but she couldn't get the words out on the paper. Like, she wrote down, "Ma is so good. She is pretty. She washes clothes and cooks." Or something like along those lines. She wound up giving a fabulous speech, but it wasn't what she had written down. I can't describe to you how much my mom means to me on this little blog. I am at a complete writer's block. But, I can tell you she is loving. She is kind. She is beautiful, on the inside, and on the outside. And even though she sometimes pisses me off when I know I'm wrong and she's right, I always know that she has my best interests at heart. I hope someday I can be HALF the mom she is. I love you, mom; you mean the world to me.

Love,

Kalli