Little House Canvas

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of altered, mixed media, off-the-page projects! 

I wanted to make a little canvas as a gift for a friend of mine, so I pulled out the Charm School kit (there are a few left!) and went to work. This is my finished product, but read below for a step by step tutorial!

I started by covering my canvas with some of the text patterned paper from the kit. I pinked the edge.  I'm fairly generous with mod podge underneath and on top. 

I cut a strip for some grass. 

And then another. 

To make the house, I cut an asymmetrical rectangle from some of the Hambly paper. I glued it on but made sure it had a little texture/wrinkles. 

It needed a cute, red striped roof. 

To embellish the grass, I poked a hole through the paper and the canvas. 

Then I threaded through one of the wire stems from the adorable little 

Melissa Frances flowers in the kit. 

I just added a little paper leaf on top to finish it. 

I added several of these, plus some fussy cut flowers from patterned paper. 

A door was added to the house. 

And then windows, with a piece of border sticker trimmed for window treatments. I also added a heart cut from paper to the front of the door. 

Then, to add paint, I used a variety of methods: 

bubble wrap stamping for clouds

A little direct-to-paper painting on the patterned paper to blend it a bit more:

some wood block stamping (with paint):

some acrylic stamping (with distress inks):

some painting with mists (on the grass): 

and on the house:

Then I used an art marker to define & blend all the edges: 

A few rub ons add some fun little details: 

I rubbed a little brown ink around all the edges and am finished! 

This was such a fun project- it makes me happy, 

and will hopefully be a fun surprise for my friend as well!