L-O-V-E

I am amazing at many things.  I am NOT amazing at punctuality or decorating.  No one comes to my house and says wow I want my house to look like hers.  Don't get me wrong you will love being at my house.  It is full of laughter and love and great food, but my blank walls and hand-me down furniture don't scream copy me.  I have been trying to change that, but if I am going to put things up in my house I want them to be family oriented.  So enters family project number #1.  

Last time my dad come to visit he brought me this old window frame from my grandparent's farm house.  It is almost 100 years old! I love it and have been wanting to do something with it.  

Recently I decided that I wanted to make something for my home for each season and/or holiday.  So my goal is to do something with this window every couple of months. Easy enough, right!?  And because it is February I chose a love theme for project #1.

My girls love art projects.  So I enlisted their help.

I have seen tape resist painting but, I wanted something less ummm square.  I have made freeze paper stencils (on onesies) before and I decided try the freezer paper method on canvas.


Supplies:
Freezer paper
letters*
pen (for tracing)
scissors
iron
paint (we used acrylic)

*for letters I used what I had around which was cardboard letters but, you could always printout some letters (or images) onto your freezer paper. (tape your freezer paper to a piece of cardstock and send it through the printer)

I traced and cut out letters to spell LOVE.
Be sure to trace and cut shinny side (waxy) down and dull side up.
The wax is what sticks to the canvas.

Next, I ironed on the letters. 

And got everyone and everything ready to paint.

Here are the girls painting. I told them to cover all the white with paint.
Remember that everything looks WAY less messy in pictures.  Have a few old wet rags around. Don't be afraid messes are fun and cleanable.

Check out their finished work. Look close and you can see the letters. 

Once everything is dry (really dry, like next day dry) peel off the letters 

exposing the canvas underneath.

My girls are AWESOME painters and they work really hard, so amazing that some paint seeped under the freezer paper. Yeah, I blamed their painting skills and not my ironing skills. So I went over the letters with some white paint.  

*this step is not necessary but I wanted to have some fun painting too, so this was the perfect excuse. And painting was way more fun than folding clothes.

Finished product!

I added some ribbon and hung them in the old window.

So come over, you can admire this one (and only) thing on my mantel.  Then I will pour you coffee and give you a cookie fresh from the oven and we will sit on my hand-me down furniture and have a wonderful conversation and you won't even notice all my blank walls.