DIY Song Lyric Canvas Art

Song Lyric Canvas Art

So if getting a house ready to put on the market and taking care of a 5 and 2 year old aren't enough...Our walls were so bare because we've only been here a year and all the ideas for art I wanted to make...I hadn't gotten around to doing yet.  So as we were staging the house, I decided I was just going to buckle down and make some of the things I had been wanting to try but just haven't had the pressure to actually get it done.  That way, the house wouldn't be SO empty, especially since all we had up were family photos which we had to take down.  PLUS, the now I'll have some new art to hang up right away after we move into a new house and those walls won't be bare like this house has been.  Apparently I can get a lot done when I have no time...funny how that works!  (I've made 3 paintings this week.  I'll post the other 2 soon so stay tuned...and I will admit, there is no time for perfection or reflection so whipping these out..they are what they are and normally I haven't done a lot of painting because I stress about it, taking my time and what not..these are not perfect but it's nice to have them up!)

Pick out a canvas, I purchased a thick 3 x 4 ft canvas at the local craft store that has really cheap canvases...I think this was just over $20.  

To start your song lyric canvas word art, find the lyrics to a song or poem that you really like and then use a photo editing program like picmonkey and add the lyrics/words line by line, editing each line to fit with the font you choose. Make sure you crop/size your template to scale of your canvas...since mine is 3x4 I made my template 3000 x 4000 pixels Here is what my finished template looked like...feel free to use it if you want, it is the lyrics of the song Happy As The Sun by Tyrone Wells (no I'm not OBSESSED but I do really like him and I liked these lyrics as I wanted a happy song that I could tell my husband and kids that it was about them).  

Take your finished template and upload it to a website like blockposters and select the size you want to print your image too and it will print your image onto the right amount of pages, blowing it up to the size you want.  now this isn't perfect...The template still ended up being a little bit bigger than my cnavas, which worked out since I had the thick canvas I just decided to wrap the words around the sides to make it fit without cutting any words out.  Print out the template and then trim all the pages and tape together.  Mine printed out onto 24 pages that I trimmed and taped together.

Now prep your canvas, if you want.  You could just paint the lyrics right onto the white canvas, but I didn't want mine to by stark white so I painted grey around the canvas, leaving some areas white...then after that was dry, I added a few washes of watered down white paint so there is subtle variation in the tone but nothing dramatic and it's not bright white.  

Take some sidewalk chalk (it wipes off easy without leaving the canvas dirty) and scribble the back of the top section of your template.

Lay it over the canvas, making sure it's straight and then use a pencil and trace over the letters to make a light transfer onto the canvas.  Now the chalk doesn't show up a TON but enough to make a guide so that the basic shape and spacing of the letters are consistent.   But to make sure I didn't mess it up or in case certain letters didn't show up well, I placed the template right below so I could also have a visual reference of what it was supposed to look like.

When I was done with one line, I would cut it off so the next line would by there, right below the line I was working on.  

Once you work through the first section, remove the template and scribble chalk on the next section and transfer...working your way down the canvas.

I used a small, flat edge paint brush and japanese sumi ink to paint on the lyrics.  I like the sumi ink because it flows on so nicely...I've painted words with paint before as well and you can use that if you want, but I just think the ink is much faster and flows better, especially for a more scripty font like I used.  

Once you are finished, make sure the ink/paint is totally dry, then you can wipe the canvas down with a cloth to get rid of all the excess chalk.  Then take some sand paper and lightly sand to your hearts content.  I didn't want the painting to be very bold and the black ink was so dark, bold and a bit shiny so I sanded away...and certain words that I wanted to pop out I sanded less.  Also, certain letters or words that were maybe a little messed up...I sanded those down a LOT which made the errors almost unnoticeable.  :)

Now, Hang it up and enjoy!  I spent 1 morning on this, getting done just before it was time to feed the kids lunch...thankfully they were enjoying being friends and playing in the playroom without incident that morning otherwise this would have taken much longer.  

Nummy Nummy There's a Rainbow in My Tummy

Rainbow in my Tummy

Get Kids Eating Healthy  with a Customized Activity Magnet Set

Hi everyone, in case you missed my guest post over at Wanna Be Balaced recently, this is my most recent tutorial.  I am excited to share this fun and easy craft project I designed that will help your kids eat more fruits and veggies and can't wait to hear what you think! :)

Sometimes it’s hard to get our kids eating healthy, including a variety of fruits and veggies every day, but it is very important to get all 5 food color groups in there (7 colors total as yellow/orange and blue/ purple are put into the same groups).

To encourage my daughter, I get her pumped up about eating a particular fruit or veggie to help make a rainbow in her tummy.  And you know all rainbows are magic right? Well, when you eat lots of different colors of fruits and veggies, it makes a magic rainbow in your tummy that helps your hair grow long, makes you brain really smart, makes your eyes see super good and it makes your body really strong and fast!   One of our favorite ways to make an instant rainbow in our tummys together is to make  strawberry lemonade with our juicer.  It's one of her favorite things to make, the kids love putting the fruits and veggies in and seeing the juice come out! And both my kids chug it, I can barely get any!

Strawberry Lemonade

1 large carrot or 2 small carrots

between half to one cup blueberries

1 1/2 cup strawberries

1 banana

1/3 cucumber

1 lemon

Now to help the kids visualize and keep track of the rainbow in their tummy each day, I made a fun little character that can be customized to resemble your child.  Here is what you'll need to make the rainbow in my tummy activity chart.

templates (right click and save images and then print so each one is a full page)

large sheet of drawing paper, butcher paper

pencil, pen

pencil crayons

glue

scissors

scrapbook/colored paper (optional)

7 small round magnets (got mine at hobby lobby)

felt (red, yellow, orange, white, green, blue, purple)

glue gun

Click on image to open the template images in new window, right click and save to your computer.  Print each image full size on a sheet of paper.

 Pick a hairstyle for your boy or girl or make your own

Trim the top and bottoms of the template pages and line up the legs to the torso and secure with a piece of tape.

Place image under a larger piece of drawing paper or butcher paper and trace the whole image.

Cut out selected hairstyle and either color in with pencil crayons or markers, or do what I did and trace onto a sheet of cardstock that matches your child's hair color and then cut out.

Use the template to give your child's character either a skirt or shorts and again, either color it in, or trace it onto scrapbook/colored paper and then cut out.

Glue the hair and skirt/shorts onto the character.  I also cut out some shoes.

If you want, you can color in the eyes and the T-shirt....or your child can color them.

Cut out circles of felt about the size of a quarter, 2 of each color. (I traced the bottom of my jumbo glue stick).  With your glue gun, apply some hot glue to the flat surface of your magnet and then press it down in the center of one of the felt circles.  Then put hot glue all the way around the edges of the circle. Place the matching felt circle on top and then pinch the seams together.

You can see below how I cut out the character from the big sheet of paper and hung on the fridge.  Your child can now move the magnets around and start with an empty tummy each day, adding magnets as they eat various colors!  And like I said earlier, there are 7 colors but 5 groups so this is what to aim for

GREEN, RED, WHITE, YELLOW/ORANGE, BLUE/PURPLE...they don't have to actually eat something blue and purple everyday, since they are in the same color group.

To help your child (and yourself) get familiar with a variety of foods from each food color group, visit these fun links and activity pages at Rainbow Foods Activities and Coloring Pages  (scroll down till you see the thumbnails of the free printables)