Flower Collage Canvas

It's really easy to collage over an old canvas and make a completely new piece of art work with just some pretty papers, glue, paint and a fine liner pen.

Here is a bit of a follow up post, sharing something else I've made with the contents of my Craft What Nots box. You can read full details about the subscription boxes and see the other things I've made from it here.

The floral papers I had were just SO pretty I thought they would make a lovely flower collage.

I started with this canvas I bought for 25p in a discount shop a few months ago. The plastic wrap had broken and somehow pen has got all over the corner so they were marked right down. I actually bought several so I guess you may see them again sometime.

If you think this is nicer than my flower collage please keep it to yourself! I started by painting over the bunny, puppy and pen marks. I just used white emulsion as that's what we had. This is what happened:

The pen just showed up more! I ended up giving it 3 coats and then gave up, you'll see in a minute.

Whilst I was waiting for the coats to dry on the canvas I cut out some petals from the floral paper. I just drew a template on scrap paper of a simple petal shape and then cut out 8 petals.

I used my 2" circle punch to make a flower centre too.

To give the petal shape some emphasis I doodled a wiggly border with a black sharpie.

Round once, then round again. The trick is to be decisive and not mess about too much. Practice on scrap paper first if you are not confident.

I also punched out a load of hearts and flowers to go with the die cuts from the Crafty What Nots box.

When the canvas was covered-ish and dry I started sticking a few flowers and hearts down with Mod Podge.

I had an idea of where the flower was going to go so I concentrated on the edges, the bits where I knew the petals wouldn't be so much. I also wanted to make sure the pen marks and cute little animals were all covered. (Can you see them still peeking through faintly!)

I wanted some of the flowers to go over the edges onto the sides of the canvas. I found it easier to crease these before applying them as the thicker papers made them a little bit resistant to my idea. They needed plenty of glue and some encouragement.

Feeling a bit inspired by the fact that the white paint had not covered very well, I thought I would create some layers by painting over this lot with just one more layer of white. I was hoping the floral paper would still show through a little, like the bunny/puppy who were refusing to go quietly. So I roughly painted another layer over the whole thing.

It balanced nicely on a jam jar when painted, so the edges didn't stick to the scrap card I put down.

I everso slightly panicked when it was wet....

but as it dried it faded a bit and all was well.

Next I Mod Podged the petals in place and added some more little flowers, hearts etc.

Some I poked under the petals before they stuck down firmly.

I just kept going until I thought there was enough.

Clearly at this point I decided it wasn't quite fussy, pretty, frilly enough so I added just a little bit more Sharpie doodle.

Just a twirl, swirl, flower, dot or heart here and there as took my fancy.

Lastly the whole thing got another coat of Mod Podge to seal.

Then it was finished - or was it?

I took one of the lovely little plywood Butterflies from the Crafty What Nots box and inked it with the blue ink pad.

I coloured the edges with a black felt pen and used the Sharpie to give it a few dotty details.

The idea was that it would add another layer and more texture to the canvas. 

I don't know whether I prefer it with or without. What do you think?

You might also be interested in:

Personalised Wedding Picture

Dotty Card Tutorial

Flowery Papercrafting

Simple Speech Bubble Cards

I'll be linking up this project at all these lovely link parties, pop over for a look at loads of projects from other blogs