{DIY project: state love canvases}

My best friend Marina made these AMAZING canvases for her boyfriend. Once I saw the pictures, I immediately called & said told her we had to share it here. I'm so happy she agreed to do it! Thanks Marina. Love ya, miss ya.

Marina chose Pennsylvania, Virginia, & New Jersey because they met in one state & currently live {separately} in the other two. 

State Love Canvases

Supplies:

• Canvases {Any size and quantity that you want! I used three 8x8 inch canvases, which I thought worked really well}
• Paintbrushes  {I used 3 different sizes to make the project as easy as possible} 
• Paint  {I used 3 different colors for this too. Navy Blue, Kelly Green, & Gold. But again, you can use any colors that you want. These are just my boyfriend's favorite colors. Also, the states look really awesome in gold, so I recommend it.}
• A pencil & eraser

Instructions {sorry for the lack of pictures!}:

1. Start by completely painting the canvases in the base color using the largest paintbrush (navy blue for mine). You may need 2-3 coats to make it look even.. or I may just be a perfectionist.

2. After the base color completely dried, I hand drew the states on the canvases using pencil. The good part is that it shows up easily over the paint & it's easy to get all of the curves of the complicated states.  The bad part is that it takes a LONG time. {If you prefer tracing it from paper, that would probably work too, it just may be more difficult to get all the curves.} When drawing the states, I just copied it straight from a map off of Google - I made sure to take up as much of the canvas as I could, and tried to make all the states as proportional as possible.

3. Next, I painted the outlines of the states in gold using the smallest paintbrush. The good part about having a darker background is that you can paint back over any mistakes you might make.

4. Then, I filled in the states in gold with the medium sized paintbrush. Again, this may take 2-3 coats to be completely even.

5. After all of the paint dries, make any touch ups as necessary.

6. Finally, place the hearts in the locations of the cities that mean the most to you! I just hand drew these and colored them in with the smallest paintbrush, using the third color.

Aren't they so great?! I was so impressed! 

These canvases make great gifts...or art for yourself!

Thanks Marina :)