Wall Art- Spray Painted Sticker Letters on Canvas ...

This is one of those projects that the end result was not what I had set out to do. I love projects like this, when veering off the path and trying something crazy, actually produces something pretty cool.

I can't believe I'm saying this but Yes, what you are seeing in the pictures above are spray painted sticker letters. It cracks me up! Who would have ever thought that our kid's overflowing sticker bins are full of home decorating treasures? Not me! The letter stickers are mostly foam, felt and plastic sticker letters hijacked from my 6-year old daughter’s sticker stash.



















I stumbled across spray painting various sticker letters to a canvas in my failed attempt (short cut) to make subway art. Needless to say, my subway art didn’t work out (cringe) but during the process, I fell in love with the look that the monochromatic painted canvas and stickers produced. The dimension, the textures, it's so easy and so cheap! Maybe it’s just me (unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first time) but I love the end result and of course I couldn’t make just one!















This project is as easy as it looks and the possibilities are endless. I used almost every type of letter sticker and die cut letters imaginable and each one worked beautifully and is now permanently attached to the canvas. I do have to say, the felt letters added a cool texture and the foam letters add dimension as you can see in this canvas that I made for a Valentine's Day gift for a friend to put on her refrigerator:







There are a few things that I did to make sure that the stickers basically became permanent on the canvas. The most important thing in spray painting these letters to canvass or wood is to use primer after you have placed and attached the stickers to the canvas.











I used two coats of primer that I allowed to completely dry in between each coat. The primer not only seals the edges of the stickers to the canvas, but it seals the top of the foam stickers (so the spray paint doesn't just absorb into the foam leaving foam holes, which it will without primer). Secondly, primer helps the stickers accept the spray paint better.


After the two coats of primer dried, I evenly sprayed my canvas two times with spray paint, allowing the first coat to completely dry (heavy, but not too heavy that it pools or runs). For my light colored canvasses, I spray painted the canvas black first so that the letters would have some black around the edges and on the felt letters that would add shading under the lighter top layer of paint:














For the large foam letters made by EVA that I used for the monogram canvasses, I first hot glued the letters to the canvas since it does not have adhesive. I then sprayed two coats of Gesso Spray (which is primer especially made for unprimed canvasses) because it is very thick and clay like and fills in gaps between the letter and canvas.











After I was done doing all of my spray painting and the canvasses had completely dried, I glazed and embellished several of them to accentuate the letter edges. For glazing, I used Valspar Antiquing Glaze:





I loved the look of these two canvasses before the glaze but I went ahead and glazed just to see how it would look:




























I also couldn't resist and just pushed silver office brads into the letters to bling out my monogram canvas (I had to poke a small hole with a knife tip for the flatter letters):







For several of the smaller canvasas, I am making them for Valentine's Day gifts and have attached round magnetic buttons on the back for the refrigerator:















Wow, I still can't believe that something so cheap can produce these fun results! I you guys decide to try this project, please send me pictures!

Thank you again for your sweet comments, emails and notes, I appreciate your feedback so much! I promise, I will be posting pictures of my laundry/craft room revamp shortly. I got a little sidetracked here with this project.

Have a fantastic week!

Cheers!


Sharing post with: