I used Cricut Craft Room to weld the words "knows" and "love" and to create the general shape and feel of the canvas layout. I started with a blank canvas not knowing why some canvases cost more than others (so I bought the cheap stuff... worked fine), I learned though that the lesser quality canvases "drink in" the paint more and it took several coats to get even adequate coverage. The first layer was done with a tan color, then I took a lighter cream color and kind of swirled it around the corners to give some variation and deph to the color. Once it was dry, I took my cuts crom my cricut that I made on vinyl and layed it out on my canvas. I made sure it was stuck down very well and then painted over the vinyl with the tan again to create a "seal" of paint around the letters. Then I had at it with the blue. Painted the whole thing then let it dry. Then I peeled off the vinyl, exposing the tan letters. I still felt that the overall look was a little bland and needed more depth, so I took some Walnut Ink, sprayed it onto a paper towel (not recommended, I'm certain I wasted a lot of ink... felt next time maybe?) and brushed the brown ink across the whole canvas, giving it a varied-aged-coffee-stained effect. ThenI gave it a generous coating of Glossy Mod Podge. While that was drying I decided to make some flowers to give the work some dimension. I LOVE the Flower Shoppe cartridge - there are so many options with it! This is the "fun" flower cut at 4" and at 1 and 3/4" Each flower piece was wet, crumpled, inked, heat dried then pieced together. Lastly, the flowers were hot glued to the canvas.
