Thank You card turned Wall Art

I recently changed up the decor in my living room (thank you new couches) and had a bare spot I desperately needed to fill. As I was cleaning off my fridge, I almost threw away this thank-you card when I realized it was the same colors as my new living room. I set it aside for a few weeks before I got brave enough to try what I had in mind.

Finally I bought the paint and decided to go for it. I had a 16x16 canvas hanging around that I bought more than 2 years ago and hadn't done anything with. I decided this would be my canvas. So I scanned in the thank-you card, resized it in a photo-editing program and edited out all of the leaves and background. Then, since I don't have a silhouette (sigh) I printed the design backwards directly onto the back of some vinyl. (Cheap roll stuff you can buy at craft stores) Then I cut out the design and applied the vinyl to my pre-painted canvas.

And started painting

Ta-da! The first layer is finished

I did a similiar process with the leaves, but I didn't take pictures. I ended up painting them twice because I didn't like the first green color that I mixed. I also did a stencil for the leaf centers, but instead of cutting out 9, I just kept using the same one.

I tried two different birds, but settled on this one. Instead of painting in on, I decided to modpodge. Oops! The mod podge was a bit messy and I forgot that it had a glossy finish. I'm not sure what to do about it right now, but I hung it up anyways. Besides that, i really like how it turned out.