I don't know why but arts and crafts that feature the hands of children really speak to me. Maybe because their hands change so much through the years and we (I) always want to hold on to them as long as possible!
I found some great Father's Day craft ideas over at Roots and Wings Co and this particular one really stood out to me. You can find the tutorial here which is the one I used except that I incorporated the saying and positioning of the hands from a different project they did into my finished product.
Here's what I did!
First, I got my supplies together:
- 12x16 blank canvas (this is what I had on hand)
- acrylic paints (I used black and ivory) and Mod Podge (I used gloss lustre)
- coordinating craft papers. I used what I had on hand but since I wanted to have the option of hanging it with the pics that will eventually be hung on the wall in my hallway, I stuck with black and gray.
After that, I used a sponge brush to paint my canvas. I just used one coat and let some of the white show through to give it a kind of distressed look.
While I waited for that to dry, I found some cute fonts over here and played around a bit until I found something I really liked then printed out my saying.
Once I had that, I turned it over and covered the back of the written part with pencil so that I could make my transfer.
Then I positioned the paper onto my canvas (pencil covered side down) and transferred the wording to the canvas by tracing over the letters. Don't worry if some of the pencil marks (that aren't the letters) come off onto the canvas. You can erase them off later.
Take your time so that you get a good transferred image as this will make it easier to paint. I was actually surprised at how good this method works!
Once that's done, take a small brush and, using your chosen color, carefully paint over the letters. This is tedious and takes a bit of time. Don't rush!
Once that was done, I got out some dark gray ink and went over all the edges of the canvas just to give it a little something extra and I also inked the edges of the hands I'd cut out as well. After that, I figured out the placement of the hands (which you actually want to do before you transfer your saying on) and used Mod Podge to adhere them. I wrote each boys name and the year onto the corresponding hand (except for Jack's which I had to do on the outside since his paper was black) and then I put a couple of coats of Mod Podge over everything and let it dry.
And there you have it! A sweet Father's Day gift that any dad will love!
