magnetic canvas board {tutorial}

Happy weekend!

I hope your week was just as fun as mine.  My cousin from Australia is in town with her hubby and three young boys (ages 3-6), so on Thursday I got to join them for a little Disneyland time. :)  All the pictures I've been taking got me thinking on how I wanted a board in my room to display them... but I knew I didn't want to use pins because that would destroy the pictures.  I liked the fabric/photo frame magnetic boards that are popular nowadays, but I wanted it to be a little more personal.  So I came up with...

The magnetic canvas board!  It's quick (took me about 2 hours, including drying time), cheap, and pretty fun to do. :)

{the magnets on the board were made by me using the same method as my photo magnets, except I used fabric instead of photos.}

{ Supplies I used... }

• Canvas (mine is 11 x 14 inches. On sale for $4 at Michaels)
• Metal sheet (mins is 8 x 12 inches. Pre-cut in the ventilation section at Lowe's. $1.)
• Paint (I used acrylic. About $1 a bottle at Michaels.  I ended up only needing one yellow and a bit of white.)
• Paintbrushes (Foam brush is 7 cents at Michaels. Other brushes I already had)
• Strong clear glue (already in stock for me!)
• Pencil (for those of us who aren't too confident in our skills at painting letters.)

...so that totals to about $6.07 plus tax.  Not bad!

My sheet of metal is just a bit smaller than my canvas, which was perfect because I could just slide it in between the canvas and the frame in the back like this:

There's some space at the bottom, but I didn't mind because that's where my lettering went, and I didn't need that part to be magnetic.

I decided to glue the sheet in before I painted the canvas, just in case the glue leaked out (I didn't want it to ruin my painting).  So put some glue around the edges of the metal sheet and slid it right back in between the canvas and the frame.

Let the glue dry for a little bit.  Go have a snack.  Watch some TV.  Pet the dog.  That sort of stuff. :)

Next step is to paint the canvas however you'd like.  I looove the color yellow, so I opted to paint my entire canvas that gorgeous color. 

You could still see the gray of the metal sheet after the first coat, so I let the first coat dry a bit and did a second coat on top of it.  

Let the pain dry completely.

When the canvas is dry, you can start your lettering.  I don't like to chance anything, so I used a pencil first.  My printer is down at the moment, so I had to freehand my lettering.  You can use a template and trace a pretty font on if you'd like (and are able).

Go over the lettering in your paint color of choice with a small brush.  Since I used white, I needed to do three coats for the pencil marks to really go away.  I also opted to draw flowers in the corner because it looked a bit empty. :)

I chose "life is good" because it seemed like a great way for me to wake up and remember to be grateful for everything that I have.  I could put cards, notes, pictures, whatever on the board, and it would all reflect on the fact that life is good.

You can letter different things on your board, like your family name, "to-do list"... possibilities are endless. :)

When the board's dry, you can start putting magnets on it and hang it up!

Enjoy! :)