Playroom Art

I saw this idea on Pinterest (of course) and loved it! It seemed easy enough and a great project the kids could do. They loved every second and are still asking when we can make another one.

First, I applied the letters to our canvas. This sounded easy, but the letters kept peeling back up. I knew they would not survive the kids painting on them that way, so I improvised...broke out the hairspray and sprayed those bad boys down. Problem solved...for now.

Next, I set the kids up with washable tempera paints and they dove into the fun part.

I told A (almost 4) that the goal was to cover all the white spots with paint. She took on the challenge with flying colors. G (almost 2) preferred painting thick globs in one general area. His sister was kind enough to help him spread it out a little, and together they coated that canvas and had a blast doing it. During the process, the colors ended up sort of mixing together into a mess of green and blue, but that's ok, we like those colors.

After the paint dried overnight, I took on the {seemingly easy sounding} task of peeling the letters off to reveal our masterpiece. Maybe it was the hairspray I used to keep them on originally, or maybe it was the letters I used, the type of paint, or a combo...but those letters did not want to come off! I tore up my nails digging at them (good thing I'm not an 'I care about my nails' much kind of chic) to get little slivers of them up and peeled them up in many many super small unsatisfying little pieces. I used an exacto knife very very carefully so I didn't pierce the canvas, to get the edges up but that didn't help much, if at all. It was a royal pain to put it nicely. And a total b$^3h to be honest.

When I finally got all the letter pieces off, I was not left with clean white letters like I expected, but luckily for this project, the messy edges were perfect. In fact, I'm not sure it would have fit the painting if the letters hadn't come out like this. The kiddos were way proud of themselves over their little work of art and it hangs in the playroom, quite appropriately. I love seeing this hanging in there, knowing their little fingers made it so proudly.

As much as I adore the way this turned out, I would love to figure out how to make this decal removal process easier and cleaner for future projects. If you have suggestions I'd love to hear them!