Pintester Movement- Em's Full Post

For those of you who saw the post from yesterday here is my full post on the Peacock Canvases and a tutorial which had been condensed for fast-ish reading sake (Marquette and I combined posts yesterday for the Pintester Movement!!)
Enjoy!!

So we got a challenge from Pintester to try a pin we were scared of, hadn't had time for, or had been on our board for forever and just hadn't gotten to. I pulled up my Pinterest and got to looking around.  I narrowed it down to four and got to work. Here I will share my whole tale, because as I have come to understand, these escapades hardly go as planned! This is both 1) A story and 2) A tutorial!! Enjoy!!

I asked the hubby what he liked best and he chose the lamp shade.  You see the lampshade we currently have in our house is in desperate need of some help...

Water stained from when our house flooded, and cracked from the move...I LOVE the base (it was my grandmothers) and so I have just been waiting for the right opportunity to spruce it up, and this seemed like the perfect time!!

Well Marquette and I took a trip to our good ole' local Wally World and I found absolutely NO fabric or paper that I liked to redo this lamp shade (which means a trip to Hobby Lobby and JoAnn's is inevitable in my future...oh darn). When I researched the original lampshade pin, I found out it was an art piece made solely of paper! No instructions or anything like that were included, so it was probably best that I didn't attempt that pin that day.

 So I moved to the next project on my board that spoke to me, the peacock canvases! Love these!!

http://thediyclub.com/2012/03/peacock-triptych-by-roeshel/

 I did find what I needed at Wal-Mart, however they only had two canvases of the size I liked, but I was sure I had one of that size at home...I am a bit of a canvas hoarder.

These are only some of them...I have an addiction.

So I get to looking at the sizes and realize I don't have what I need. So Marquette and I start brainstorming, because another trip to Wal-Mart is out of the question and I had bought the last two of that size anyways. *le sigh* 

I end up having three matching canvases of the XXL size but I'm not sure I want a single peacock feather to be 3 1/2 feet tall, I just don't have enough duct tape sheets for that!

If you are wondering what I mean by that let me explain my improvising.

The original peacock canvases were made using a vinyl cutout machine, like a Cricut or a Silhouette. The vinyl sticker is laid on the canvas, painted over, then the sticker is removed and voila!

But I unfortunately don't have one of those so I had to get creative.

Fortunately Wal-Mart sells duct take sheets now which are 8x11 inches and which were perfect for this! I figured I would attach them together, draw my image on the back, cut it out and voila! My very own custom peacock feather!

I did not however have enough sheets to make a 3 1/2 foot tall peacock feather (although looking back now that would have been amazing!).  So I decided to make three canvases, using the same peacock "stencil" on each and paint them each one of the following colors: dark purple, navy blue, then teal for a ombre effect.

This way they all look cohesive, I only have to draw and cut out one stencil, and I don't have to worry about a gorilla sized peacock feather.

But this meant I would have to salvage a board I had used for another project.

(The above picture was a project I did around Christmas, with the two below being my inspiration for the project.  We ended up updating the room with a  giant map tapestry and I haven't decided what to do with all the canvases yet, so they have been stuck in a  corner for six months till now!!)

I used my large center canvas ( the C G E one), repainted over it white, and got down to the nitty gritty.

I gathered my materials, and combined my duct tape sheets...

Next I painstakingly happily drew my peacock on the back of my combined duct tape sheets.

Next I cut it out on a cutting board using an Ex-Acto Knife.

Here is what it looked like all cut out! Remember whatever you draw on the back will be backwards when you flip and stick!!

 At this point I had already put my base glitter gold spray paint (a shout out to my sweet husband who ran to Wal-Mart after work to get me more glitter spray paint!)on the canvases and had let it dry. This will be the color that the actual feather will be when it was all said and done.

  

Next I placed the stencil on the glitterific canvas after pulling the paper backing off my cut out stencil:

And then sprayed my over color on top!

Then when it is all dry you slowly peel the sticker off. Looking back I would have split the sticker into three or four sections and then pieced them together on the canvas. Getting the original backing from the duct tape off was a nightmare and I spent a good hour un-sticking the duct tape from itself.

 By the time I got to the third canvas I had split the sticker into four pieces, and upon removal from the previous canvas I put the pieces on wax paper to keep it flat and untangled. I HIGHLY recommend this from the get go! See below!

Here is the final result!

All three just finished. Hello toes!

A close up of the glitter detail.

In their final place! I love them!! They match the style of our room perfect and were just the right size for the space!

And here is what I looked like after 8+ hours of Pinterest Crafting...

(I can't decide if I was Pinterest exhausted or if the Strep I came down with the next day was catching up me...)

 So there you have it! I stared off needing a new lampshade and ended up with three peacock canvases that look nothing like the original pin.

Such is the story of Pinterest!

                                The Original                    The Pinstrositeer Version                          

It's your turn now! Get out there pinners! Try something you have been putting off! I finally got off my butt and I LOVE the results of my project! When you finish your projects send them our way and we can do a compilation post! Good or bad, finish your pin and let us know how it went!