Nifty Thrifty Gifty: Wall Art

This is the project I’ve been working on for my sister, since she got to open it today, now I can share it with you!

I heard about this idea from a friend of mine, and tweaked it a bit to add my own style to it. 



First, I asked around and got some old sheet music ( from the same friend, hee hee!)

I  ripped out enough pages to generously cover the canvas I had. Some I left as whole sheets, and some I ripped in pieces to create a neat effect.




Then the girls helped me age the paper with tea.  They had lots of fun with this step!  If you’ve never done this before: just soak a tea bag in hot water for a few minutes, then without wringing it out too much, wipe, dap and spread it all over the paper.  Add layers until you are happy with the color and let paper dry. I was impatient, so I dried mine with the hair dryer.



Next, I modge-podged the papers to the canvas.  Lily, my little helper also generously applied it all over the table…
I layered them at different angles, leaving the torn edges showing, until I was happy with the look.  Then I covered the whole thing with a thick layer of modge-podge to seal it.



Next, I enlisted Shawn to help me make the music note.  I had tried looking for something in the scrapbooking stuff, but didn’t find anything I felt suited it. Shawn had this great copper wire, which he bent into shape for me, leaving two pegs that we punched right through the canvas. On the back of the canvas, he put a dab of hot glue on each peg to hold it in place.  Then, he attached a string so it could be hung on the wall. 


And, Voila! Wall art.  Baden did help with this project too, helping to position and glue the music note, but somehow he didn’t end up in any of the pictures!

Obviously, I did this in a music theme, but you could do it in any theme that would suit you.  My friend who made the original one did a bird theme for a friend of ours.  She used pages from an old bird watching book, and used a scrapbooking embellishment of a bird as the decoration.  I was thinking it would be nice in a wine making theme too, with a copper wine bottle…  Also, since the sheet music I used was all hymns, I was also imagining a cross as the embellishment would be nice.  Really, I think you could use any theme you came up with!