Oh Deer, Pinterest Challenge
Ok, so sometimes I go to the dump and bring home treasures. In our little town, the local garbage dump has a little "free" store attached to it. You can put stuff in there that you think others might want to salvage, rather than throwing it into eternal dumpness. I have gotten some really great treasures to repurpose, these canvases are among my treasures (so are two nearly perfect Bentley suitcases, a child's rocker that needs recovering, and a giant 3ft x 2 ft frame to repaint).
These canvases I picked up one week and the next week the larger, center canvas was there. It is actually what I used in this project, but I forgot to take a before picture of it. Here's the two smaller ones, just so you get an idea of what the picture was. Not horrible, but not me.
I have been wanting to sort of "man up" our bedroom a little. It is in a mauve/grey pallette (Calvin Klein bedding, Madeira...see picture of completed project below, it is the fabric behind) and there are leaves in the pattern. It isn't overly effeminate, but it isn't exactly macho either. Enter the need for a deerhead.
First, I needed inspiration. It came from here.
Next, I needed to find a deer head silhouette I liked. It came from here.
I went with the deer head in the middle (it may actually even be the same exact one as in my inspiration photo).
Then came the work. (sorry, no photo of this part, I totally spaced it.)
I plugged my computer in to my tv screen and adjusted the image to the size I needed in order to fit my canvas. Then I taped (don't tell my husband) clear contact paper to the screen (gasp) and traced it lightly. Be really careful here, if you have an expensive tv and it gets damaged, this is NO LONGER a cheap little project. I would recommend a projector, but I couldn't get my hands on one.
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Next, I primed my canvas since it had a bit of sheen to it. Then I cut out the traced deer head and placed the sticky side down on the canvas just where I wanted it. (remember, I traced it onto contact paper)
Then I gave the canvas a good two coats of paint, a colour that would coordinate with our master bedroom. Then I simply peeled up the contact paper and that left it looking like this.
Here comes the tedious part...colouring in the deer head with a contrasting colour. I used my son's little water colour brush (and promptly went out and bought a proper one for my next project) and put 2 coats of a slightly pink tinted white. It took me a while to complete-probably 2 hours total, spread over a few days), but it was totally worth it!
I would love to show you a picture of it hanging on the wall, but I'll spare you. I made this picture with our future home in mind (we're framing a new house now) and it totally clashes with the wall colour in our rental. Soft, buttery yellow and this mauve colour = total grossness. Oh well, a few more months right?
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