handprint canvas

Remember when a certain someone (me) said that they were going to be focusing on getting caught up with all of their scrapbooking. OK, that was NOT a lie, but sometimes certain projects take precedence. Like when you're walking through Hobby Lobby and discover that the canvasses are 30% off, and there's a project that you've been wanting to do (inspiration seen here, here, and here), and you realize you should do it sooner rather than later before your little man's hands get too big (because we have never gotten our little dove's hand prints, the hospital where he was born said they don't take hand and foot prints anymore, did they mean just THEY don't or ALL hospitals are fazing that out?), plus it was obviously meant to be since the canvasses are on sale, right? And wow, that was a long run on sentence. My high school AP English teacher, Mr. Lloyd, would be so proud (go Vikings!).
So anyway, here is an easy-squeezy tutorial for y'all, even though none is probably needed. At least this way if you decided to make your own you'll have some ideas of how you can get started! 1} I bought a two pack of 11x14" blank canvasses and (as I mentioned) it was on sale, so each one comes to $2.27! I'll save the second one for another project someday.

2} Then I went online and found an outline of California (the state where my little dove was born). One of the inspiration posts used contact paper for the state outline. I opted to just use regular paper and I "attached" it to my canvas with about 6 Elmer's glue dots (I love those things).

3} Then I pulled out some "opps" paint that I already had. **Here's a tip** every time I go to Home Depot or Lowes, I always walk by the paint area and see if there's an "opps" paint that I like. It is soooo cheap! I watered it down a little bit and painted with a pretty dry brush to get the effect I wanted, and I made sure to brush away from the paper outline, so that paint wouldn't get underneath the paper. This worked great, so in my humble opinion you don't need to go through the hassle of using contact paper.

4} Then I let it dry completely while I waited for the hubby to get home (there was NO way I was going to wrangle my little guy without the help of a professional... aka. a Dentist that works on little kids all day). Then we carefully brushed paint on my little dove's hands and carefully placed it on the canvas and held our breath...

At first the perfectionist in me was having a hard time since the hand print didn't turn out exactly the way I had wanted... but then I just told myself, "it is my sweet little boy's hand print, made from his precious little hands. get over it." And I did and I love it. :)

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