Lighted Christmas Canvas

I’ve always wanted to try painting a Christmas canvas! And the more lights the better is the rule at Christmas, why not do a lighted canvas!? 

There are lots of ways to do one of these…stencils and stick on letters are the easy way. I couldn’t find a stencil of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus so I used this little cardboard set that I found at Hobby Lobby…

For the paint I used DecoArt MultiSurface Satin

*Black Tie

*Night Sky

*Cotton Ball

*Americana Acrylic in Coral Blush

First, using double side tape, I put the cardboard cutouts on the canvas before I started painting. Then I went over the canvas with a mix of blue and black. When it was dry, I went back over the canvas with a mix of the peach and white-blending with a little water so it wouldn’t be too streaked. The canvas looks black but it’s really different shades of blue!

After the canvas was dry, I removed the cut outs…

And with a small brush, I painted the inside of the shapes white…

For the star, I printed this one and cut it out-

Then using double side tape, taped it onto this gold paper I found last year at Anthropologie! (of course you can use any craft paper)

I wanted the word Love to be in gold too, so I printed out the word…

 Then taped it to the gold paper…

Using an X-acto knife, I carefully cut out the letters…

I had some stick on letters but they were to wrong color…no worries!

I used DecoArt Rose Gold Metallic Lustre to make the color exactly what I needed!

Have you used Metallic Lustre? It’s a water base metallic wax…

I used DecoArt DecouPage to put the letters and the star on. I even used it on the stick letters to make sure they stayed in place…if you don’t want your canvas to have lights, you’re done!

Or you can add a string of tiny lights! Just poke holes where you want the lights to poke through…don’t make the holes too big…

This part is tedious. Put the lights in from the back of the canvas…I taped the cords trying to get control!!! I really dislike crazy wires!

And TaaDaa!!! It’s done!

It’s really pretty when it gets dark…

What would you put on a lighted canvas?

This post is part of my Year of Reckless Crafting, where I’m doing projects with new things! For this project, I tried fairy lights and canvas! You can see all my crafting shenanigans from this year:  HERE

And for more Christmas Projects…All Things Christmas-HERE!