Friends, flowers, and a canvas blank

I'm continuing my love affair with Linnie Blooms canvas shapes, and this time I am playing with a "long canvas blank". It is a layer of cotton batting between a blank cotton canvas and a printed cotton layer on the back, size 12"x5".

Just like the other smaller Linnie Blooms shapes that I've played with before, I love the way this texture absorbs any medium I throw at it. Today---acrylic paint! I used some Scotch blue painters tape and created a chevron pattern. I did not measure---just laid down the tape in what looked like straight chevrons to my eyes. I like the way it looked when I aligned them off center. Make sure you push down hard to adhere the tape to the blank so that you don't get any seepage.

I spread the acrylic paint directly on the canvas with a foam brush using a light gray and canary yellow. As you can see, there is no need to be neat about it!

I ripped the tape off (I didn't even wait for the paint to dry) to see how it turned out and was so impressed that the lines were so sharp.

To create the jar, I traced a clip art jar shape onto some velum paper and cut it out. I inked the edges and then highlighted the thread and reflection lines with some Rock Candy Stickles. I attached the jar to the canvas by sewing on a few stitches (can't have any adhesive showing)! It's difficult to see in the photo but there are wire stems wrapped with twine that I hot glued to the back of the felt flowers--they run down into the jar so the flowers don't look like they are just free-floating.

Yes, those are Linnie Blooms leaf shapes in between my felt flowers (a Sizzix die). I swiped some Distress Stain on those leaves to add a splash of color. Then, I plucked some random buttons from my stash and slid a few seed beads onto the threads as I attached the felt flowers to the canvas.

Lastly, I printed the sentiment on some cute pink/khaki gingham paper. I dried the ink with a heat gun to make sure it was really dry before painting a layer of Modge Podge over it to add some texture.

I loved this project SO much, that I've decided that this was the first in a series of seasonal blanks. Coming soon---fall! I better hurry, it's already September!

~Kelly