While The Cat Is Away, The Mouse Will.... Craft!

Andrew was away this past week for work.  Rather than binge on Netflix, which I was quite tempted to do, I decided I would use the time to complete a few projects.  I didn't get as far as I had wanted, but I did get several things done that have been on my list for a while.  On Tuesday, I ran out to Michaels and Hancock Fabrics over lunch.  Here is the stash I came home with.  My goal was to finish the gallery wall we started a couple of weeks ago.  We finished hanging the photos at the top of the stairs, but needed to wrap it around going down the stairs.    

Several months ago, I bought five 12x12 canvas prints at Lowe's for dirt cheap.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them at the time, and they have been sitting in the corner of our living room since.  But, 5 12x12 canvas prints for less than $9.00 was hard to pass up.  This week, I finally found a use for them.  I went to Hancock Fabrics and used a coupon they had for 15% off my purchase.  I bought some dark gray fabric I found on a sale table. I ended up buying 2 1/2 yards of fabric and now have 1 1/2 yards left over.  Clearly, my estimations of how much I would use were way off. 

I started by laying out the photos I wanted on the canvas. 

Once I laid all the photos out, I set to work covering the canvas with the fabric I purchased.  I wrapped the corners like you would when wrapping a present, and secured everything with staples using a staple gun.  I didn't think hot glue would hold the fabric tight enough.  Once that was finished, I attached the photos to the canvas using adhesive photo mounting squares and silver tacks.

 The "W" is hot glued on the canvas so it wont fall off. 

Luckily, these canvas prints already had the bracket attached for hanging, so it made life easy.  

Next up was the canvas I had previously printed the lyrics to our first dance song on.  I used a Living Social deal to have a 20x30 canvas printed with the lyrics and a photo of us during out first dance, so I no longer needed the canvas.  

 I couldn't let a 16x20 canvas go to waste, so I decided I would use it as my "family" sign.   

Before

 After

I bought the letters to spell out family as Michaels, and painted them black. I bought the fabric in a roll from Hancock Fabrics.  I says things like, "play, live, love, laugh, adventure, family", etc.  I covered it the same way I covered the square canvas prints.  It was a little harder because if I stretched it too much, the words on the fabric looks slanted or stretched out.  I hot glued the letters to the fabric and attached a hanger to the back frame so I could hang it up on the wall. 

Finally, I completed a couple of other projects I came up with while I was walking around Michaels.  I always go in with intentions of only getting certain things, but then I see other stuff while I'm in there and start coming up with projects on the fly. 

 

I finished hanging everything up about an hour before Andrew got home on Friday night ! 

Hanging photos going down stairs isn't as easy as one might think.  I finally busted out some painters tape to put on the wall following the railing down the stairs so I had a bit of a guide to go off of.  I hung the family canvas three different times.  I wanted it far enough above the railing that people wouldn't run into it when they were using the stairs, but I also didn't want it too close to the ceiling.  I think I struck a happy medium.  This is a good base, and I plan to add over the years as we accumulate more memories!  The nice thing about the photos on the canvas blocks is that they aren't stuck on there permanently, so I will be able to remove them and swap them out as we get updated photos.  

One project I didn't get completed this last week was the tie backs I plan to make for our bedroom curtains.  Once I have those done, maybe we can finally call the room done after the swap out for new furniture and the fresh coat of paint it got a couple of weeks ago.