Blogger Inspired Illuminated Christmas Wall Art

A few Christmas' ago, I was perusing the world of Pinterest for ideas for an oversized piece of Christmas artwork to use as the centerpiece above our mantel. The kicker? I needed to be able to create it myself. After seeing all the beautiful illuminated artwork created by other bloggers, I wanted to try my hand at it and was pleasantly surprised at the outcome!

For my inspiration, I loved the idea of the illumination of the Christmas Light Canvas from Ask Anna and the phrasing and font selection of the piece of art on The Lily Pad Cottage’s Christmas mantel. Our mantel is very thin, and I wanted to give mine a rustic feel without using wood, so I decided to go with chalkboard.

To start the project, I purchased a large stretched canvas.

Using this chalkboard spray paint from Rust-Oleum, I painted the entire canvas.

While the canvas was drying, I created my saying and graphics using Microsoft Publisher and printed it out on transparency paper.

Using an old school overhead projector, I projected the graphic up onto the canvas and traced it with a white pencil.

After I was happy with how it looked, I colored in the pencil markings with a thin white paint pen.

After the paint was dry, I poked holes in the canvas using a screwdriver and added these lights. To keep them sturdy and attached, I used a staple gun to strategically attach the cord to the frame of the canvas.

Here's the finished product on my mantel! I loved how it turned out and have continued to enjoy it year after year!

Original article and pictures take http://www.hometalk.com/10949169/blogger-inspired-illuminated-christmas-wall-art site