PinTricks

If you are looking for an easy and relaxing project to do while watching a movie then this one is definitely good to try. From start to finish it took me about 1-1/2 to 2 hours... the perfect length for a movie night :)

Pinspiration- Anthropology glasses which are no longer available

Step One- Gather Materials:

- FolkArt enamel paint
*can be found at Michaels or Hobby Lobby for about $8 with one of their 40% or 50% off coupons
- Glasses of choice
*I chose to experiment on some cool wine glasses that I found at TJ Maxx
- Paint brushes or Q-tips
*Q-tips are WAY easier and still give you a similar look

This is the enamel paint (sorry for the blurriness folks). There are a lot of colors in this container so I chose not to mix anything special for this project. It was pretty easy to find ones that I liked :)

Color Scheme #1- Red, Orange, and Yellow

Color Scheme #2- Pink, Purple, and White

Step Two- Paint!

As I mentioned above... using q-tips to paint the glasses was just too easy. Just dab the q-tip in the paint and spot away!

I focused on doing one color layer at a time. That way, after I was done applying all of the colors I could go back and add touches of color wherever else I felt it was needed.

Close up shot of the paint layers... lookin good!

Those purple spots turned out MUCH darker than I would have liked... but I still like it :)

COMPLETED! Purple, Pink, and White mix

COMPLETED! Red, Orange, and Yellow mix

Step Three- Place the glasses on a cooking sheet in your cold oven. Turn oven on to 350 degrees. Once the oven has reached 350- set the timer for 30 minutes. After your glasses have 'baked' for 30 minutes at 350 degrees- turn the oven off and let it cool with the glasses inside. It's important to let the glasses heat up and cool down INSIDE of the oven so that the glass doesn't break.

Now you're ready to use those beauties!

I think next time I'll try experimenting on some stemless glasses :)

This is one of my favorite projects that I have seen circulating on Pinterest lately. It's a great project to do because it really doesn't require many materials and it's not that expensive! Plus... there is the added bonus of being able to whip up some pretty special custom gifts.

Pinspiration

Step ONE- Gather Materials:

- 5x5 Gallery Wrapped Canvas
- Liquitex Matte Gel Medium
*I purchased the Canvas and the Medium from Michaels. The medium was $12.99 and the canvas was $5.99. I recommend planning ahead and using the 40% and 50% off coupons that are always available online to print out.
- Something to spread the medium onto the canvas with.
*I used one of the disposable foam brushes that I keep on hand so that I could just toss it after but even some paper towel or any type of paint brush would work.
- Ruler or tape measure
- Scissors
- 4x6 color prints of your selected pictures on regular copy paper.
*Since I was planning on doing 3 canvases at one time, I printed out a selection of possible photos to use so that I could select the ones that looked the best. You could also take the time to scale and modify a picture in photoshop (or similar program) if you wanted to.
- Spray bottle to wet the photo.
*You can also use a wet rag if you don't have a spray bottle. I just thought the spray bottle sped things up a bit.
- Something to use for distressing the photo.
*I used a different 'distressing' method on each of the 3 canvases that I made, so I'll be going over those details more below. My three items were a dobie pad, a rag, and a green scouring pad. You'll definitely have one, if not all three, of those items already on hand.
- Furniture Polish
*I know... totally random but you'll need it.

Step TWO- Trim your selected photo to fit on the canvas:

I wanted to leave a little white space around the photo so since the canvas was 5"x5" and the photo was 4"x6", I just had to trim the photo to leave 1/2" on all sides.

I just centered the image how I wanted, marked where I needed to cut it and...

...voila! 4"x4" square. So far, so easy!

Step THREE- Apply medium in a thin even layer to the canvas:

Applying with the foam brush... I focused on the area of the canvas where the photo would be.

Nice thin layer.
***It's important to keep the layer of medium thin. I applied it too thick on one of my other canvases and it kind of puckered up the photo. I'll show you that one further down.

Step FOUR- Lay photo face down on the medium-covered canvas:

Make sure it's nice and fully 'adhered'- no bubbles or wrinkles.

Step FIVE- Let dry overnight... and try to be patient :(

Step SIX- Wet the photo and rub off back layers of the paper.

All three canvases lined up, dry, and ready to go.

I started out wetting the paper with a wet rag, which worked, but it was taking a tad longer than my impatient self liked.

With the paper wet, you can start seeing the mirrored image that's on the canvas :)

Better, but still taking a while to get those edges with the rag. So...

I whipped out the spray bottle. This was so much easier than the rag. You just keep wetting and wiping down the paper until the whole thing is translucent and you can see the image.

Just take your fingers and start lightly rubbing in a circular motion to start peeling off the paper layers. Not gonna lie... this was kind of fun :)

going...

gone!

***Please note... you do have to be gentle when you get down to the last layer or two of paper. You don't want to rub the ink image off of the canvas!

Step SEVEN- Distress the image

Here they are... all three canvases lined up and ready to be distressed. There is still going to be a slight haze to the image until the final step so don't worry if it's not looking perfectly clear.

Just wet the image with a wet rag or spray bottle. Since I was doing three canvases in one sitting, the first had dried by the time I was done with the third. I found it MUCH easier to distress the image if it was wet/damp first.

Just mop up the extra standing water...

FIRST method using a dobie pad. I started out pressing very lightly but you really have to put some pressure into it if you want it to do anything.

You can start seeing some of the marking from the rubbing. I tried to focus on the edges and on the background of the image.

All done!

SECOND method using a green scouring pad. Once again, you really have to put some pressure into it.

I tried doing more vertical wear lines on this one while still focusing on the edges and background.

Just turn the canvas as needed... really try to distress the edges a bit.

Two down... one to go!

THIRD method using a rag. Pressure pressure pressure

*You can see on the left how the image looks like it is puckering up. That is caused from the medium being too thick in that area. The ink from the image didn't adhere well to the canvas so I had to be really careful when I was distressing this one to not pull up more than I already had.

I do like how this method distressed the edges.

You can really see how the different materials really made a difference in the look of the distress. I actually like them all! Maybe for the next one I"ll get all crazy and use all of them ;)

Step EIGHT (FINAL step)- Polish the canvas