mexican style dining room ideas
today, we're makinga diy lighted canvas. i love staring at the night sky and have always been drawnto constellation maps, so i decided to trythis lighted canvas project originally foundon marthastewart.com, and put my own spin on it. so as inspiration for the art,i'm using an astrology-focused,constellation diagrami found on google. okay, to get started you needan art canvas.
this one's 24 x 36 inches. to get the constellation effect,get yourself some black acrylicpaint and paint two coatsonto your canvas. make sure to keepall your brush strokesgoing in the same direction. it really helps the overall look. wait for it to dry, then print outyour inspiration image to use as a guideif you're free-handing it. then just start marking outyour points and connecting them according to the diagram.
it doesn't have to beperfectly spaced, just go for it. when all the constellationswere drawn out, i turned each little constellationpoint into a little star using a fine-tipped marker. then i filled in all the emptyspaces with smaller dots to represent somemore distant stars. it probably took meabout eight hours to doall of this. now time for the lights. i'm using a strand of 100white string lights
and a nail to make holesin the canvas. the nail is perfect for makinga hole big enough but not too big, so the lightsits in there quite snugly. i started by making the first hole in a star close tothe bottom corner then gently pushed the first lightthrough the hole. then you just want to tape downthe end of that light strand in the corner with some duct tape. continue poking holes in thecanvas, slowly working your way
from the bottom to the topand inserting the light bulbsas you go. i decided not to use glueon each light because they fit in therepretty well and they tend to need to swivelas you're placing the lights. also, you may need to replacea burnt out light bulbat some point, and that's going to bea little difficult if they're allglued in there. once you've placed all your lights,the back should look somethinglike this, like a snake zigzaggingthe entire length of the canvas. another thing to keep in mindis that it's very difficult
to get all the little lightsto stick perfectly straightout of the canvas, so try to let go a little. with the canvas i used,the light strand puffs outa little bit from the back, but i was still able to hang iton the wall using an extra-long screw, which i was kind of surprisedabout but also super happy about. and voila, you have yourselfa gorgeous lighted art piece. i like itwith the overhead lights on. i like itwith the overhead lights off.
the only real problem i've havingis whether i like it more in the dining room with our rusticmexican decor or over the hogwarts shelfwith our pixie-pagan decor. what do you think?i really hope you likethis project. it's super easy and reallyquite awesome once it's done. make sure to subscribeand let me know in a comment what you would like to seeon the show. snip, snip.