Creating Inexpensive 3-D Wall Art

Happy September!! Who's excited for fall? This girl! There's nothing like the first few days where the air is crisp and cool to get me really excited for all the fun things to come - festivals, pumpkin patches, football, holidays...love it!

So recently, I decided I needed to get my act together and address the lack of "things" on the wall. With the exception of the gallery wall, and the painting done by my cousin that lives above the fireplace, our walls are relatively un-adorned. So it was with great interest that I discovered, and quickly began coveting, these beauties on Pinterest (links to their pins are below each photo.)

Pinterest

Pinterest

Pinterest

White letters on white canvas make my heart go pitter-patter. Plus, the Mister LOVES 3-D art, and I love all things white, so this is the perfect type of artwork for our house. I went to the website on the Pins - these things are in the $200-$300 range! Seriously?! This screams DIY.

I decided to start small, and create a piece to go over the kitchen door that leads to the laundry room/garage:

In our kitchen's previous life, we had these pictures above that door:

They went really well with the Lancaster Whitewash walls, but they weren't really doing it for us with the new color scheme. So over to Michael's I scooted, and came home with these:

I got a value pack of 11x14 canvas, for only about $8, and these wooden letters for less than $2 bucks a pop. I decided nothing got to the point of a kitchen quite like "EAT" - so that's what I went with. Short, sweet and to the point. I like.

I laid the letters out in the garge, and set about introducing them to the Spray Paint Fairy. I used this stuff:

It's super inexpensive at Home Depot, and it's by far my favorite white spray paint. Two thin coats, and the letters were already whipped into shape:

I brought them inside and glued them onto the canvas. I originally planned to use ModPodge, but then I saw this stuff at Michael's.

I decided to give it a try, because it was only $4 and it specifically said it worked on canvas. It actually worked really well, and I didn't need to use a lot to get the letters on there. (Plus, it doesn't set right away, so you can move them around to make sure they're all centered. For a girl that hates to measure, this is a good thing.)

Once the glue was dry, I gave the entire thing - canvas, letters and all - a few thin coats of spray paint. Once that was dry, I gave it a quick shot of my favorite clear gloss to make sure it was shiny and sealed. 

And here's the finished product:

Not bad for under $10 bucks! And now that I've gotten the hang of it with this little one, I can tackle some larger scale versions for some of the other rooms in the house. Sounds like a good project for a three day weekend...