Color of the Month: They Call It Love

Let me start by saying that this month's family room color was supposed to be purple which is one of Lucky's favorite two colors, but because of the fact that I own no purple decor pieces nor do I have the time to do any purple focused shopping this month, the color this month has officially changed.  And Lucky is still going to love it, because her other favorite color is pink and her newly finished room is full of great pink and orange accents that I can easily borrow.  This month's color of the month is pink (and orange and gold).

I've actually finished pulling the room together and have only spent $2 of 'new' money on the room this month on a few clearance candles from IKEA.  Everything else I had on hand already.  I'll be showing the complete room next week.  In the meantime, here is a tutorial on the mantle art I quickly created for the month after being inspired by this headboard that my friend discovered awhile back:

via House Tweaking

For my project, I used extra fabric I had on hand from Lucky's embroidery wall art project:

I cut out a 30" x 30" square because my plan was to cover the still unused canvas that I used in April's Blue Mantle in fabric.  The canvas size is 24" x 24" and is 1.5" deep.  I then used four 24" pieces of painters tape and placed them on the fabric to create a faux frame for my artwork that is the exact size of the canvas.

Next, I mixed up 2 parts white paint: 1 part fabric medium which I have on hand for another project.  

After pondering many word options for this project like 'family', 'home' or 'happy', I decided to stick with the word 'love' for its cursive simplicity and valentine's potential.  I crafted up a template using several sheets of construction paper.

I removed the template for the letter 'l' after placing two pencils at the top and bottom of where I wanted to position the letter.  I painted the 'l' making it connect to the paper 'o' and repeated the process to paint the 'ov', and then finally the 'e'.  I wish I had taken more pictures:).

After painting over the word a second time (the first run was light and more about getting the letters in place than doing a great paint job), this was the result:

I stapled the fabric to the wood canvas frame (I can use the canvas again in the future:)) and here it is:

Do you love, 'love'? I do.  It's not bad for a quick (20-30 minute) project.  The lines in the fabric made the project especially easy as I just taped, painted and stapled using the lines as a guide.  And even if you had no materials on hand, you'd be able to recreate the same look for about $16 with a $9 canvas frame like the one we used in Lucky's headboard, $5 on a yard of fabric and $1 each for the craft paint and fabric medium. (I got my fabric medium at Hancock Fabric's and I never heat set the paint because I'll never wash the fabric in this project.)  That's not bad for a custom piece!  If I ever do this again, I'll probably use a fabric that stands out from our background fireplace rock more, but for now, this works:).

Linking up to Finding Fabulous.