canvas floor cloth

I have found that it's really easy to get caught up in home decor trends. While I love to use popular styles and patterns in our home, I don't like spending the money on items that I might get tired of over time. One thing I have been wanting is a colorful geometric or Moroccan inspired rug to go beneath one side of our kitchen counter. I wanted something long and narrow but the options that I found were the wrong size or were way out of my price range. When I run into this type of challenge (as many of you know), I like to figure out a way to make my own!

I settled on the one thing that I have lots of experience with...canvas! And while I know that canvas floor clothes are nothing new, I wanted to share this project to pass along a little inspiration to those of you out there on a tight home decor budget!

I've found that when creating canvas floor clothes, it helps to have your canvas primed really well. You can use any kind of canvas. Raw canvas or even canvas drop clothes will work, you will just need to prime it with gesso or white paint. I typically work with raw canvas but for this project I actually used medium weight cotton canvas, acrylic primed. I have a roll of this canvas that I've had for years that I pull out for floor clothes or projects that require a a heavy or smooth surface.

TIP: A canvas drop cloth will work just fine for this project but the cheaper drop clothes have a very loose weave and can distort over time. I've found that a couple coats of white paint (I use house paint) or gesso will give you a nice smooth and heavy surface for painting.

Even though my canvas came primed, I gave it one more coat of white paint and then I got busy painting pattern with acrylic paint. Before I started my project, I collected all kinds of inspiration from different rugs, patterns and designs. I decided that I wanted my floor cloth to have a crazy "mash up" of patterns and lots of color.

I also decided that I didn't want things to be too perfect or fussy so I free handed most of my patterns and embraced my lines and shapes being a little wonky.

Most of my painting projects end up going pretty fast but this floor cloth took me forever! There was a lot of space to fill and a lot of layers which means lots of time spent waiting for paint to dry.

The last step was to seal everything. I've tried a lot of products when it comes to sealing canvas and my favorite thing to use is Minwax Satin Water-Based Polyurethane. While a canvas floor mat will go through wear and tear, sealing it with a couple coats of polyurethane will make it last longer!

When using a canvas floor cloth in on hardwood floors, it is important to make sure it doesn't slip. You can use a floor gripper or double sided carpet tape under the floor cloth to keep it from moving.

You can check out how I created our doodled dishwasher HERE and our painted counter tops HERE

canvas supply bag

I do a lot of traveling back and forth between my home and my studio and that means I am always lugging a bunch of supplies with me! Recently I found THIS canvas supply tote (this post is not sponsored) and I thought it would be perfect for transporting supplies.

The tote is heavy duty canvas and has 8 large pockets and 16 small ones and is designed to stay open when you set it down- perfect for a variety of random supplies. There was no way I could leave this tote plain so of course I used acrylic paint and added messy layers of color to it. I used a combination of Golden Fluid Acrylics, High Flow Acrylics and Blick Matte Acrylics. 

TIP: I've found when I am painting on heavy duty canvas, I prefer to use fluid acrylics because them seem to spread and soak into that heavy canvas better.

I gave the tote a quick layer of messy color and a few simple details and just like that it was transformed into something that felt a little more like me!

fruit slice placemats

Summer is right around the corner (despite being fogged in for the last couple of weeks) and I'm in the mood for summer inspired projects. We love using placemats at meal time and recently I had the bright idea to create some colorful fruit slice placemat- a perfect accessory for summer meals!

I kept it really simple and used canvas for this project.

I started by cutting out circles from canvas and painted them with a thick coat of white paint.

Next I sketched out my design and then using acrylic paint, I painted each fruit slice.

The last step was to seal everything. I used a thin coat of Mod Podge for a little bit of shine and to seal the surface.

I LOVE how the placemats turned out! 

I don't think I will ever stop getting excited about how much you can do with paint and canvas!

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canvas car storage bags

When you have a kid, the car is home to LOTS OF CLUTTER so I have been on a mission to find some simple and creative ways to get our car organized! As you all know by now, we love paint and canvas so I thought it would be fun to create some colorful and messy canvas car storage bags for books, toys, snacks and anything else that we take on the road.

This was a perfect project for Lucy to help with! I let her paint the first couple of layers of canvas (letting each layer dry in between) then I went back in and added my own little creative touches to the final layer.

Next, I sewed the canvas into simple bags that were long enough to hang from the seats in the car. 

I added pockets and a strap.

tip: use a denim needle when sewing canvas with layers of paint!

The result is a colorful and funky way to keep things the car a little more tidy! 

And speaking of canvas...I've got a fresh batch of canvas pouches hot off the sewing machine! Head on over to my shop HERE to see the entire collection. They always sell out fast so get em' while you can!

For those new to my blog- A big part of my creative business used to be making one of kind handbags from my canvas paintings (and then I had a baby)! When I have time in my schedule for sewing, I have one of a kind pouches and bags available in my shop. 

canvas pencil holders

If there is one thing I have A LOT of laying around my studio is painted canvas scraps and pens and pencils. 

So when I needed to organize supplies, I decide that all those canvas scraps would be perfect for making some cute little pencil holders!

I cut my canvas into a rectangle.

I folded it in half.

Sewed up both sides.

Sewed each corner (on the inside).

Turned the pouch right side out.