How to Repurpose Art

I’m super picky about what I put on the walls in my house, especially after I have just painted.  The possiblity of hanging something I’m not happy with and then having nail holes in places I don’t want them, slightly paralyzes me.  Seriously, the struggle is real!  I put a lot of thought into what I hang up.  Consequently I have lots of inexpensive artwork stored in various closets around the house.  Sometimes its a change in taste, sometimes it just doesn’t work for the room any longer.  Either way, what can you do with that unused artwork?  The options are pretty limited-give it away, toss it–OR you can repurpose it into something you love!

How to Repurpose Art!

Forgive the poor quality of the photo, we had a two week span of bad weather and lighting was a huge issue.  Anyhow, this is the original. I loved it in our former home but, in this house, it just doesn’t work.  I tried applying white wax over it to mute the colors a little, but it didn’t take it down enough.

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I love the farmhouse, bakery, and grocery signs that are so popular lately. This picture was the perfect size for a farmhouse sign to hang over our flat screen and with some paint and a stencil made with my Cricut Explore,  I could make one of my own for a fraction of the cost!

The Process

1.  Make sure your piece is free of dust.  Wipe it down and let it dry well.
2. Choose your background color and apply two coats of background paint .  I used Fusion Mineral Paint in coal black and applied two coats, allowing time to dry in between.  I was using a very dark background color, priming wasn’t necessary, but if I were going to paint a light background, I definitely would have primed first.

Second Coat:

3.  While the paint was drying, I designed the adhesive stencil on my Cricut Explore.  You can use a store bought stencil, but the beauty of the Cricut is you can design your stencil to the exact size you want it!  I simply measured the length and width of the canvas and chose my letter font, then typed in the word “farmhouse” in caps, and Cricut did the rest. You can see how I create stencils with my Cricut Explore here.

4.  I placed the stencil on the canvas and filled in the letters with white acrylic paint.  I didn’t worry too much about coverage being perfect, I wanted it to look a bit worn and shaded. The actual canvas has a crackle finish which helped with the overall look!  You can always gently sand to distress it more!

5.  Once filled in, I let the paint set for a few minutes, then peeled the adhesive stencil off and it was done!

And here it is in place.  FARMHOUSE art for virtually pennies.

Now I have to figure out what to put on either side of the tv!

Take a look around your house and if there is something that doesn’t work for you anymore, change it into something that does!

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