An Anniversary Project

Aaron and I celebrated our 7th anniversary last week. I wanted to give him a gift that was meaningful to us and that we could display in our new home. I have actually had this art project on my to do list since our 6th anniversary, so I'm so glad that I finally got around to doing it after all of this time. I followed this DIY subway art tutorial; however, I tweaked things here and there.

 

At our wedding seven years ago, Aaron and I danced to Al Green's "Let's Stay Together". I decided the lyrics to "our" song would be the perfect words for this piece.

 

I began by typing the lyrics into a text box in Microsoft Word. I used a 4x6 text box and formatted it to have a black background. I used three different fonts and just played around with the size of the text.  I then had Staples blow up the image on an engineering print. I had already purchased a 24x36 canvas and that is the size I chose to have printed. When I picked it up, I realized that I would want the image to wrap around the sides of my canvas; so I had it reprinted at 36x48. When I picked it up the second time, the text area was larger than my canvas so the words would have wrapped around the sides. (Such is my life!) I edited my image once again to make the text area smaller and had it printed one more time. The people at Staples were very patient with me. Haha! Finally, it was time to get to work.

 

I laid my print on top of my canvas to position it correctly. I used a ruler to make sure that it was centered horizontally and vertically.

 

 

 

Next, I trimmed the edges and rolled the image up being very careful to keep it in the correct position.

 

 

I used Mod Podge and a large sponge brush to adhere the image to the canvas. I brushed a little on the canvas at a time while unrolling the paper onto the canvas.

 

 

Here is what it looked like immediately after gluing it down. It was very wrinkly but the tutorial assured me that was okay. I also wrapped the paper around the edges and glued them down, as well.

 

 

This picture is terribly blurry but this is what it looked like when I was done. Honestly, I wasn't a fan. Somehow it didn't stay centered despite my efforts and I thought the size of the text was a little too small for the canvas. Sigh...

 

 

Fortunately, I remembered that I still had the original 24x36 print that I had made hiding in my car. I pulled it out and glued it down directly on top of the first one. It looks so much better, don't ya think? I also used a spray sealer to protect my work.  

 

 

The engineer print (black and white only) produced a distressed look that I was going for. Check out the closeup! You could get a crisper black look by having Staples do a color print; however, it will cost you about 6 times more. I wasn't interested in doing that. I was able to create this project for under $20 even with all of my printing mishaps. All in all, I am so happy with it and Aaron was super impressed. He actually asked me where I got it and couldn't tell it was something I made myself. Here's to many more years of "staying together"!