DIY Large Art Quote Canvas

I made this large quote canvas as part of my friend's birthday present:

Life Designed

 This quote is practically my life's motto! 
 I have Habitually Chic's blog to thank for it!

Habitually Chic

When I saw this on Heather's blog, I immediately posted it on Facebook and in turn, my friend immediately messaged me asking if we could recreate it or her home.

But of course!

The first thing that came to mind were the huge mint condition 2'x3' frames I saw at Habitat Restore this summer. At that time, I contemplated picking one up but I just didn't have the need for it and even though I knew the day would come when I would need a huge frame... I passed on it. 

I rushed down to the store only to find all 30 of them were sold. Darn...Yes, I was kicking myself. They were so cheap too! Only $15!! What was I thinking!?!

Oh well. I suppose it wasn't meant to be.

The other problem was that since my computer died, I didn't have Photoshop/Publisher to recreate this. So even if I had gotten the frame, I would have had to wait until I got my rented school laptop and I wanted to give this to her on her birthday. 

So then I thought... well let's REALLY DIY this thing. 

Besides, it seemed a bit too easy to just print off some text and frame it. Where's the time "wasted" in that right?

So I took the quote to heart and spent time making this work of art- if I can even call it that! 

Ever since I made the small love quote canvas back in February, I've been waiting/wanting to make a HUGE canvas using the same method. 

But...I knew a large canvas would cost an arm and a leg- this was supposed to be a small gift since the bar cart was her real present. 

So, I used the same method as when I made my burlap coffee sack art. 

I got another $1 burlap sack from Lee Valley and spray painted it white. 

Life Designed

I wanted it to be a crisp white but....burlap just soaks up paint so that's as white as it got after about 3 coats of paint.

I added a few more coats and then wrapped it around the frame that I made using 11/16" trim. 

Life Designed

Now for the lettering...I couldn't find any 1"-2" wooden letters. Actually, Michael's has some but only in Time Romans font (blah...).

I went to the kiddie section and found a bucket of large foam letters. Jackpot! 

Life Designed

I chose the font that was the closest to a sans serif bold type. 

Life Designed

With these buckets, you never know what you're going to get. I needed a lot of the same letters and luckily, I had them all!

I spray painted them with Rustoleum's Real Orange- this is a really beautiful saturated orange.

Life Designed

Spraying foam is a little more tricky than wood. If you spray too many coats, it cracks:

Life Designed

Spray it too little and you'll get little bumps as the paint soaks into different parts of the foam.

The best way to do it is to spray it once. At first, you'll see a bunch of little bubbles/holes, keep spraying it until all the paint pools up. This of course adds a pretty thick layer, so LET IT DRY for a long long time.  A few times, I was too impatient and ruined the paint! Arg... Good thing I had a BIG bucket of letters!!

I like that these foam letters have a sticky back- which would work great on a smooth surface but since this is burlap, I wanted to give it more stability so I used wood glue to secure them in place.

Life Designed

Here you can see it's quite white compared to the original burlap. 

I don't mind it being more white-washed than a stark white!