Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) Summer 2012 Show
Art Journal Every Day: Jordan's Step-by-Step

DIY: Canvas Necklace

You may recall these silly pictures of me wearing the make & take that I designed for The Crafter's Workshop CHA booth.  

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It's easy and fun to do and I thought today I'd share how to put a necklace of your own together!

You will need: 

Note: I didn't include links to any of the stencils because they're not available yet.

STEP ONE: Monoprint with a Stencil

A blank white canvas can be very intimidating.  One easy way to mess it up is with a quick monoprint with a stencil!

Squirt acrylic paint onto a Gelli Plate.  (If you don't have a Gelli Plate, use a piece of glass or even some Palette Paper.  It won't be exactly the same, but quite similar.)  

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Notice that I used two colors of acrylic paint.

Roll the paint out with a brayer.  

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Be sure to clean your brayer.  I like to use a baby wipe.

Place a stencil onto the Gelli Plate.

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This is the "Bug Doily" stencil in 6x6.

Place a piece of Sticky Back Canvas face-down onto the Gelli Plate.  

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Rub with your hand.

Lift it off and you'll see your print!

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My print is a little blurry because I moved it while I was printing.  We're going to cover it up, so it's not a big deal.

I like to clean my plate by making additional prints with the remaining paint on the Gelli Plate.

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To transfer the ink, simply rub with your hand.

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Don't forget to lift the stencil and make one more print!  

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You can clean any remaining paint from the Gelli Plate with a baby wipe.

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Check out this quick video where I show you the printing:

STEP TWO: Layer, layer, layer!

Now it's time to have some fun with lots and lots of layers of stenciling.  In my FREE online class, Stencil 101, I share how I like to apply acrylic paint through a stencil.  It's the method that I used for all of the stenciling you see here:

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I also like to add in some simple hand painted shapes (like these red circles):

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And then I just continue to layer even more stencils until I have something like this:

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It's really important that the canvas be really densely patterned.  We're going to be cutting it down into little pieces and for the little pieces to be interesting, they need to be dense.

STEP THREE: Create the Pendants

I discovered that the smallest rectangle on the 6x6 "Life Masks" stencil (numbers are for the 12x12 version)...

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...is the perfect size for these pendants.  Essentially it's 1.5x2" opening with rounded corners.

Trace the smaller rectangle on the back (paper side) of the Sticky Back Canvas.

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To create each pendant you will need two rectangles.  So if you want three pendants, trace six rectangles.

Once you've traced them all, cut out the rectangles using a sharp pair of scissors.

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Peel the paper backing off of one piece of Sticky Back Canvas.  Place the neck cord onto the adhesive side, about 1/3 inch from the top.

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Remove the paper from a second piece of Sticky Back Canvas and place it adhesive side down, so it matches the first piece.

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You are effectively trapping the neck cord in the center of the two sticky pieces.  I like to use my fingernail to smooth out the canvas on each side of the cord.  If you didn't match up the two pieces of canvas, no worries.  Simply trim with scissors.

And remember, you can make the necklace any length you want.  Add one pendant, three pendants (as seen in the first set of photos), or even seven pendants as seen here:

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Thanks for stopping by!

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P.S. Don't forget that your necklace is double-sided!  So you're actually getting two-for-one!  :)

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